


Biggles Flies South-South-East

by Northoftheroad



Category: Biggles Series - W. E. Johns
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2019-11-04 06:20:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 29,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17893145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northoftheroad/pseuds/Northoftheroad
Summary: Biggles & Co end up at an archaeological dig in Malaysia, with no contact with Algy and their plane. But what is going on in the jungle, where someone flies mysterious fighter planes over their heads?





	1. Archaeological dictionary

Right, I realise that the approximately five persons in the world who might be interested in this fic is already on the Biggles forum, where I posted it originally. But I'm posting it here as a safety measure, anyway. 

* * *

 

**Dictionary**

Artefact - man-made object

Horror vacui - fear of empty space; in art, when the whole surface of an object is filled with decoration.

In situ - latin for ”in position”, i. e. an object found where it was left once upon a time.

Stratum (plural strata) - layer (of soil). Stratigraphy - order and relative position of artefacts occurring in layers of strata; if you dig a trench you’ll see the different strata sideways, generally older the further down you dig.

Typology – the arranging of artefacts into different categories with common characteristics, to establish for instance a chronological sequence.

Paleolithic, mesolithic, neolithic - Old, Middle and New Stone Age. What years we’re talking about varies in different cultures over the world.


	2. Bonus material

**Bonus material – the making of a fic**

 

(Written as a dialogue with myself.)

  
”Right, I take it you want to have some fun and write a Biggles fic. Any idea about the plot?” remarked Northoftheroad, in a resigned voice.  
  
”You bet I have! Since we agree Biggles is a menace to archaeological research everywhere, how about abandoning him in a genuine dig, where he is completely useless and with nothing to do. He’s going to hate it – I see it as a fitting revenge on behalf of Archaeology,” replied Northoftheroad firmly.   
  
”OK, I see your point. But how is Biggles going to end up at a dig somewhere out of touch with civilization? He’s not going voluntarily, I dare say,” said Northoftheroad thoughtfully.   
  
”Obviously, the whole dig has to be lost. Logically, there will be a party of archaeologists that have gone missing and no one knows exactly where they were going to excavate. Surely that can’t be impossible to set up? We are talking about a time before GPS and satellite telephones, you know.”  
  
”But not a time before aeroplanes – what’s to prevent Biggles from taking his plane and fly away, once the archaeologists start getting on his nerves?” demanded Northoftheroad.  
  
”I would have thought that was evident – the plane will have to abandon him, for some reason or another. Standard Biggles plot-line. You have heard of for instance ”Biggles in the Blue” and ”Biggles Makes Ends Meet”, haven’t you?”  
  
”I don’t suppose I need to ask who is going to be left guarding the plane,” murmured Northoftheroad.  
  
”Of course not. It’s not a proper Biggles story unless Algy guards the plane, Ginger gets lost, Bertie drops his monocle and Biggles smokes too much,” returned Northoftheroad. ”I think the reasonable thing to happen is that some bad guys will both, somehow, strand the archaeological party, and chase Algy and the plane away. A little shooting and he will take off, in order to protect the plane and hence the only means to save Biggles and the others.”  
  
”Fair enough. But exactly where is this going to happen?” queried Northoftheroad.   
  
”Let’s check that old atlas from 1950-something I have,” suggested Northoftheroad shrewdly. ”That way we can find out what countries were still a part of the British Empire, or Commonwealth or whatever. Then I can at least come up with a feeble excuse for Biggles & Co. to be involved in the search. And since Ginger needs somewhere to get lost, we’re talking desert or jungle.”   
  
”Right, now I’ve looked through the atlas. We have some candidates,” announced Northoftheroad, some time later. ”How about Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad, St. Lucia...”  
  
”I’m not sure I like the idea of an island,” interrupted Northoftheroad. ”They might be too small to get truly lost on – I mean, how many hours can you walk around Alnön without hitting a farmhouse? And didn’t you get past South America, anyway?”   
  
”Do you mind! I’ve made a list of each continent in turn!” snapped Northoftheroad.  
  
”All right, sorry, do continue.”  
  
”Right, I’ll scratch some of the tinier places, but British Borneo is a reasonable size, I’ll have you know. In Africa, you have several options – Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Gambia, British Somaliland, Nigeria, South Africa, Rhodesia... ”  
  
”South Africa – no way! Do I have to remind you of apartheid!? Anyway, I think I prefer a jungle to a desert. A lost excavation should be easier to spot in a desert than in a dense jungle.”  
  
”Africa isn’t one vast desert, you know. Did you ever hear of Tarzan? The chap that swings in the tree-tops?” sneered Northoftheroad.   
  
”Yes, yes, whatever – what are the options in Asia?”   
  
”Let’s see. Ye-es, how do you feel about the Malayan Union? Lots of jungle, still a British colony in the late 1940-ies... And it is larger than Alnön, so Ginger can probably get lost,” added Northoftheroad sarcastically. ”It’s only slightly smaller than Lappland, Västerbotten and Norrbotten put together.”  
  
”Sounds promising,” said Northoftheroad thoughtfully. ”How about a RAF presence? I have a feeling our boys might need some help.”  
  
”Just a minute, let me check on the iPad,” said Northoftheroad and started tapping on the contraption.   
  
”Right, no problem. RAF should be in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, at the very least.”  
  
”Splendid! Now, why don’t you check in that ancient encyclopedia of yours if there is something worth excavating in the Malyan Union, there’s a good girl.”   
  
Northoftheroad glared, but did as she was asked, and after a few minutes looked up from the heavy book with a grin.   
  
”Check! Even in the 1940-ies, they had found for instance neolithic artefacts, so there will be stuff to dig up all right.”   
  
”Excellent! Now I can really get to work with the plot,” declared Northoftheroad, happily.  
  
Northoftheroad gave her a dubious look.  
  
”You do realise you know absolutely nothing about Asian archaeology, don’t you? Why can’t you abandon them in a trench somewhere around the Mediterranean, where you actually have a clue about what it might look like? I’m positive you’ve never read a word about Malayan prehistory,” she pointed out.   
  
”And? Surely there are some books on the subject?” challenged Northoftheroad. ”Greece or Egypt would be nice, I grant you, but not even Ginger could get lost in The Valley of the Kings. Where is that iPad – I’m going to look for books about Malayan archaeology right away. Abebooks.com will save the day, I dare say.”   
  
”All right, have it your way,” said Northoftheroad and shrugged. ”But tell me this; what exactly happened that made the archeological party lose contact with civilization in the first place? What’s so interesting in this jungle that something dangerous can happen?”  
  
”Ah – you got me there. How about I start writing and hope I come up with something...?”


	3. Chapter One

”I say, whatever can they imagine they’ll find out in this perishing jungle? It’s nothing but a lot of trees. I mean to say, if you want to dig up archaeological stuff, you might as well start where there are some ruins to give you a clue where to look, what?”  
  
The words were uttered in a plaintive but loud voice, to be heard over the roar of machines and propellers, by a man who was polishing an eyeglass. He was seated in a rear seat of a twin-engined high-wing amphibian that was cruising at low altitude over a glittering meander of water running through the wavy, green sea of the Malayan jungle.  
  
Inside the plane four men were observing the ground. They had been doing so for several hours, with hardly a word being spoken, while the plane had conscientiously followed rivers and subsidiaries. Finally, the former Flight Lieutenant of RAF, Lord Bertie Lissie, had reached the limit of his endurance when it came to bored silence.  
  
”I visited Athens once. You didn’t need to fret over where to put the old shovel in the ground there, if you see what I mean.”  
  
”We do see what you mean, but I believe there aren’t many old ruins around here”, observed the pilot, Sergeant Bigglesworth, retired from Service as Squadron Leader and better known to friends and foes as ”Biggles”. ”Most buildings in these parts were made of wood and leaves, and they don’t leave much of a ruin.”  
  
”Can’t be much fun poking around for some wilted banana leaf, no, by Jove”, muttered Bertie, put his eyeglass back in its pocket and turned his clear-blue eyes towards the side window.  
  
”So what are they looking for?” asked Ginger Hebblethwaite, with a youthful curiosity that had not been dampened by his years as Flying Officer, serving in theatres from England to Borneo.  
  
”I haven’t a clue,” retorted Biggles, ”they didn’t teach ancient Malayan history at Malton Hall School, and I didn’t bother to ask when we got this job. Not much help in finding this missing party, I thought. Ask these well-educated lads instead.”  
  
Bertie instantly protested that his public school hadn’t specialised in anything so exotic, but if anyone wanted to know about the principles of Archimedes, he was the very man to tell the tale.  
  
”Something about a bathtub, as far as I can remember,” he added.  
  
”Why anyone thought it worth his while to pay for your education I’ll never know, what with everything you’ve forgotten,” murmured Ginger.  
  
The fourth occupant of the plane smiled indulgently at the banter but refused to be drawn into it by naming what his old school had taught on the subject of Asian archaeology. Algy Lacey, Biggles’s cousin and old second-in-command from the war, was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, tracing their flight on a map.  
  
”The problem with this thick vegetation is that it makes it difficult to find them, unless we happen to fly right over their heads,” he remarked.  
  
”That’s why they asked us here,” reminded Biggles. ”If it had been easy we would have been well on our way home by now.”

 

The four pilots attached to the Air Police Service of New Scotland Yard had, in fact, been on their way back to England, having successfully concluded another case abroad, when a message from Air Commodore Raymond had intercepted them.  
  
Biggles, putting a call through to the Air Commodore in London from a service radio at a RAF station i Singapore, had been asked to make a detour to the Malayan Union and assist in the search of an archaeological expedition that had disappeared about a week earlier. The party had taken off in a boat up the river and had kept in touch on the radio until they reached the excavation site; since then there had been no more contact. Several days later a plane had been sent out to look for them, but it never returned.  
  
The team was led by a Professor Hayward from Oxford University, who was accompanied by a number of colleagues and senior students and some native staff. One of the students happened to be the daughter of the Sultan of Perak, for which reason the disappearing archaeologists swiftly had become an issue on the highest political level.  
  
”It would be a good thing if you could give them a helping hand with reconnaissance. After all, the area is mostly virgin jungle. It will be difficult to spot the party except from a plane. It shouldn’t take you too long; Malaya is, after all, not the largest area you’ve been asked to search,” the Air Commodore told Biggles.  
  
Biggles was not too pleased with the prospect of surveying yet another jungle, but nevertheless agreed to do so. As the Air Commodore had pointed out, the Union was a British Crown Colony and as such entitled to assistance from the Air Police. He and his three Air-Constables had set out to get what information there was about the proposed excavation site.  
  
This turned out to be pretty meagre, as map-references goes. The expedition was meant to continue work with an excavation that had started before the war and had turned up some interesting finds; stone implements and cord-marked pottery were mentioned. However, a lot of the paperwork concerning the site had been lost during the occupation. The party was relying on Professor Hayward, who had participated in the earlier dig, to find their way. All Biggles and the others had been able to find out was the general area of the site, and which river to start following.  
  
The airmen had set off, flying low over the rivers and streams that more often than not constituted the only roads of communication in the jungle. The Air Police was still pretty much making do with old RAF aeroplanes; however, on this trip they flew a machine that had been provided by the Royal Navy. The US-built Grumman Gosling wasn’t fast, but quite small, which would come in handy if they needed to land on one of the rivers.

 

”We should at least be able to see the boat,” stated Ginger from the cabin, where, truth be said, the side windows were too small to see anything much of interest.  
  
”Yes,” agreed Biggles, ”but we’ll soon have to turn back for today, I’m not taking any chances of running out of petrol. All these detours along tributaries make the trip longer than one would imagine.”  
  
They flew on in silence a while longer up the river, until Algy looked ahead with new interest.  
  
”What’s that, up ahead? To the left, just in front of the little point?”  
  
Biggles reduced speed and altitude as much as possible while four pairs of eyes searched the riverside, and presently they could all make out the desolate remains of metal and wood. The still glimmering metal suggested that the wreck was fairly recent, but there were no people in the vicinity.  
  
”That’s probably what we’re looking for,” opined Biggles, ”but there are far too many bends to put the machine down. Let’s hope it straightens out ahead.”  
  
He continued to hedgehop, and after a few minutes the river did indeed straighten out. The stretch of water was certainly long enough to put down the Gosling, but it was hard to tell how deep the water was, and there were always the risk of obstacles just below the surface. However, Biggles had never liked to leave a job unfinished, and was not eager to return to the RAF airfield without examining the boat-wreck. He made several false runs over the river, with all of them scrutinising the water.  
  
”It looks all right,” asserted Biggles finally. ”No visible obstacles in the water, not even a crocodile, and there are no branches in the way either. I’m going to put her down.”  
  
”Did we bring a canoe, in case we need to boat it back, or do we have to make a raft?” asked Bertie philosophically when the plane headed down.  
  
The keel of the flying-boat hissed as it broke the surface of the muddy water. It rocked a bit, but soon settled down, and came to rest. Biggles taxied the plane to the west side, turned back towards the cabin and started giving orders.  
  
”Ginger, get out and fasten the plane, would you? Bertie, get the haversack and some water bottles. Better get a first-aid kit, too. And see that you’ve got your automatics, both of you. Algy, have you marked where we are on the map?”  
  
Algy handed him the map and pointed to a black X by one of the blue lines.  
  
Ginger opened the door and climbed cautiously up on the nose, where he took hold of a branch to haul the plane closer to the bank. He made fast a rope in the mooring-ring, climbed ashore and tied the other end of the rope to one of the trees on the bank.  
  
Bertie and Biggles followed, while Algy stayed on the nose of the ship.  
  
”We’ll follow the river down to the boat and see if we can find a path from there,” Biggles decided. ”Algy...”  
  
”Yes, yes, I know, stay with the machine and watch out for attacking ants and whatnot.”  
  
Biggles smiled wryly.  
  
”You never know, one of these days you might find yourself eye to eye with a jumping crocodile, so keep at least one eye open.”  
  
”Push off, why don’t you? The sooner you go, the sooner you’ll be back. It’s not daylight indefinitely in this part of the world, you know.”  
  
”You’re right there, old boy,” said Bertie warmly. ”I don’t fancy being stuck in the bally jungle when the sun drops behind the horizon. Let’s tootle along.”  
  
”I don’t know what happened to discipline and respect for your superiors”, Biggles complained while he, Ginger and Bertie got themselves ready to leave. ”This civilian life isn’t good for you.”  
  
Algy grinned and gave him a wave.  
  
”Have a nice walk.”

 

”How can a short trip in the air became such a long walk on the ground?” Ginger complained after half an hour of walking, trying to whisk away some of the mosquitos who were giving him their undivided attention. ”It looked like it was only on the other side of the bend.”  
  
With Biggles in the lead the three airmen were slowly walking along the riverbank.  
  
The vegetation came all the way down to the water, and they found it difficult to keep their footing when, once in a while, the slippery ground slanted steeply towards the river. They climbed the odd tree trunk that had fallen down, and were from time to time forced to make a short detour inland when the vegetation made it impossible to walk along the water.  
  
The air was filled with the smell of mud and decaying plants. Orchids, growing on branches that caught the sun from the clearing over the river, and some flowering bushes on the edge of the tropical forest provided spots of colour, while farther from the river the dense foliage put the area in a perpetual half-shadow.  
  
”I wouldn’t mind the walking and the climbing, if only the beastly mosquitos could find some other prey,” returned Bertie, fervently sweeping after his surrounding pets. ”Why didn’t we bring some mosquito nets?”  
  
”If you’ve only got mosquitos to fight with you’ve got nothing to moan about,” said Biggles evenly. ”Keep your arms and legs covered or you might end up feeding the leeches, and try not to put your foot down on a snake. It can only be one or two more creeks to pass.”  
  
After a further twenty minutes they reached the scattered remains of the boat. Tired and hot after the walk, they sat down at some tree-roots. Biggles took a cigarette from his case and lit it while he regarded the wreck.  
  
What had obviously been a boat large enough to hold the archaeological party, consisting of some fifteen people, was now a burnt-out shell. The surviving parts of the hull were sticking up in the water close to the shore, and some loose parts were floating in the water inside the hull. Close by on the bank, under a banyan tree, some crates and bags were stacked.  
  
”Good thing we spotted it from the air, considering the shape it’s in”, said Ginger after a while.  
  
”At least they seem to have unloaded when it happened”, remarked Bertie with a nod towards the crates. ”So hopefully they’re all safe and sound.”  
  
Biggles nodded in agreement and looked pensively around the place. He got up and spent some minutes walking slowly up and down the wreck. Then he turned his attention towards the bank of the river, soon finding what he looked for close to the banyan tree; a narrow path through the jungle. He went back to the others and sat down once more.  
  
”I’d say that is where they went inland to this excavation site of theirs,” he mused with a nod towards the footpath. ”They probably needed to make several trips to bring all their equipment, and I can’t imagine who else would make a path in the middle of nowhere.”  
  
”No doubt, old boy, no doubt.”  
  
Biggles took up the map and his compass and checked the bearings. Then he stood up again and crushed the end of his cigarette under his heel on the soggy earth.  
  
”Right, you’re the ones who’re in a hurry to get back to the machine. Let’s get cracking. We’ll follow the path and see if we find a bunch of marooned archaeologists at the other end.”

 

”Funny they’re not keeping watch by the wreck”, observed Ginger when they started walking. ”It would be the best place to be found, and they ought to expect someone to come looking for them.”  
  
”Students and professors are a breed of their own,” put in Bertie who was walking right behind him. ”They’ve probably found some old skull and forgotten all about being shipwrecked.”  
  
The track, that was anything but straight, led up a gentle slope from the river. It kept turning for trees, boulders and waterlogged patches, but when Ginger checked his compass he could see that it nevertheless kept a direction. Around the path lay branches, smaller trees and ferns that had obviously been cut down to make the pathway.  
  
A clear green paroquet with a red beak flew up from a nearby shrub in protest of the disturbance when they passed, and the odd rustling sound in the undergrowth proved that there were animal life in the jungle. But of the archaeological team there was no sign.  
  
It took them about twenty minutes to reach the end of the trail. Finally, they broke through the thick undergrowth and found themselves in a clearing, adjoining a precipitous limestone hill.  
  
Once the crashing sounds of three airmen in a jungle had ceased the glade seemed devoid of life. Nothing was moving. There were only the buzzing sounds of cicadas and some far-off cries of birds. On the other side of the clearing a canvas roof was held in place between tree-stems and poles. By the hillside, under a natural roof of eroded rock, they could see that digging had been going on, but there was not a human being to be seen.  
  
Biggles and the others exchanged puzzled glances and walked slowly round the area, up to the hill. The limestone, a melange of light grey and yellowish brown, was visible where erosion had carved caves and furrowed the steep sides to an intricate pattern; while the hilltop, consisting of three pretty even peaks, and less steep portions of the sides were coloured green by thick vegetation.  
  
They paused by the rock-shelter that stretched almost fifty feet along the hillside. Inside two trenches had been dug.  
  
”Look,” exclaimed Ginger and pointed down in one of the trenches, ”they’ve even left their tools.”  
  
”A bit like the Mary Celeste, what?” remarked Bertie, screwed his monocle in his eye and jumped down. He nudged a shovel that was laying on the ground. ”They seem to have just put their stuff down and vanished.”  
  
Ginger and Biggles strolled along to the second trench. Ginger squatted and looked at the dug-out side, where one could make out the vague outline of different layers of soil. He picked up a small trowel that was lying on the ground and poked curiously in the earthen wall, trying to dislodge a fist-sized stone.  
  
Biggles took up a small brush, more to have something to do with his hands than of actual interest in the object, while his ever-roving eyes were taking in the area.  
  
”Strange,” he agreed, ”the place seems deserted, but not long ago. But they can’t have left by boat; a smaller vessel couldn’t have taken them all, and besides, we would have spotted them. And they can’t very well have started to walk back.”  
  
”Here’s something.” Bertie held up a reddish brown shard of pottery, in size slightly smaller than the palm of his hand, for inspection. ”I wonder if this is what they leave home and comfort for,” he continued, studying the object for a minute as to find out what alluring qualities it could hold.  
  
Biggles dropped the brush, sat down on the side of the trench and lit a cigarette.  
  
”No doubt we’ve found the right place, but I don’t know what to do with no people about, and that’s a fact.”


	4. Chapter Two

The first sound of human life the airmen heard was the rattle of pebbles being kicked about. A minute later a man came out from a cave in the hillside. He seemed to be in his late fifties, with grey hair and some days’ stubble on his cheeks, with a wide-brimmed planters’ hat in his hand and dusty clothes. The man stopped and stared incredulously at them, then put the hat on and hurried down.  
  
”What the dickens are you doing in my trenches?” he bellowed. ”Take care or you’ll upset the stratigraphy.”  
  
The sound of the man’s voice seemed to wake the jungle clearing; before long, a few more people looked out from caves and several came rushing around the hill. The airmen found themselves the centre of an attention that was not altogether benevolent; Ginger did his best to put the trowel down inconspicuously.  
  
”Would you mind not smoking in the trench? The ashes might interfere with our analysis,” said a blond young man in biting tones to Biggles.  
  
”Analysis – of what?” asked Ginger in a dazed voice.  
  
He was met with several snorting sounds from the archaeological team.  
  
”Why, the analysis of course! Pollen analysis, for one!” exclaimed the young man with an aggressive tone that contrasted sharply to his soft Oxbridge English.  
  
Ginger looked down under his feet, shrugged helplessly, and decided he might as well get out of the trench before any of the madmen actually attacked them.  
  
Biggles calmly went up, politely doing his best not to dribble ashes in the trench, and looked around him. It would seem the Air Police was now the local attraction, surrounded by eight people, mostly Europeans of an academic persuasion. Two of them were young women; the one with copper-brown skin and black hair cut above shoulder length no doubt the daughter of the Sultan of Perak, he reflected. A bit further back a group of workers, Malay, Tamil and Chinese, were following the proceedings with some curiosity.  
  
”Professor Hayward, I presume? I am Sergeant Bigglesworth from the Air Police, New Scotland Yard. These are my Air-Constables, Lissie and Hebblethwaite.”  
  
”What-ho,” greeted Bertie.  
  
”Scotland Yard?” echoed the grey-haired man. ”What on earth brought you out here?”  
  
”You, actually. People are worried, in case you hadn’t realised.”  
  
”No – whatever for?”  
  
A slight pause followed; Biggles gave his colleagues a helpless look.  
  
”You might have noticed that your boat has burned to a cinder, old boy. No-one has heard from you for days,” said Bertie carefully.  
  
Professor Hayward looked at the three policemen in turn, took off his hat and scratched his head.  
  
”There must be some misunderstanding here. I’m really sorry, Sergeant... ahem?”  
  
”Bigglesworth.”  
  
”Sergeant Bigglesworth, but you seem to have been dragged out here for nothing. We’re by no means lost. It is inconvenient to be without the wireless and to have lost the boat, of course, but we brought a good stock of supplies. But let us offer you something to drink now that you’re here. You’ve awaken us from our siesta a bit early, but we might as well have a tea-break and get back to work.”

 Presently the three pilots were sitting around a flimsy table under the canvas roof at the edge of the jungle, together with the three elder archaeologists. The five students sat at an adjoining table. A supply of biscuits, bread and dried fruit was brought out from a nearby cave and put on the table, together with water and a kind of fruit-drink.  
  
”We can put the kettle on if you want tea, but we’ve noticed a lack of appetite for hot drinks during our midday tea-breaks,” offered the fair girl in the posh accent that, as far as Ginger could understand, was the usual language for archaeologists.  
  
When the policemen politely had turned the offer down, the grey-haired man started talking.  
  
”As long as you’re here, we might as well introduce ourselves. As you know, I’m Jeremy Hayward. I was out here before the war, we dug some trial trenches and found some pretty interesting stuff. But what with the occupation and all it has been impossible to get back, until recently. These are my colleagues from the department in Oxford, Doctor Nicholas Barton, an expert on Asian prehistoric pottery, and Doctor Paul Saint-Simon.”  
  
Nicolas Barton was a rather stocky built man in his early forties, with fair hair and light grey eyes, dressed in what might have been an old khaki uniform with all military markings removed. The dark-haired and slightly younger Paul Saint-Simon was wearing a light costume of the type colonial officials tended to favour in hot climates, though the state of it clearly showed that the man wearing it spent a lot of his time on his knees in holes.  
  
Biggles, Ginger and Bertie shook hands with the archaeologists and repeated their own names.  
  
”Over there are five of our senior students. If you’re serious about archaeology you need to come out and dig for yourselves,” the Professor continued with a nod towards the other table.  
  
”We’re the cannon fodder,” grinned one of the students, a dark, lanky young man with spectacles, speaking with a Northern dialect that set him apart from the rest of the party.  
  
”That would be our resident comedian,” said Professor Hayward drily. ”David Macsweeney. When he doesn’t fool around he makes decent sketches of our artefacts and trenches. Then there are Princess Aminâh and Helen Jennings.”  
  
The two young women, one with black hair in a three inch-cut, the other freckled and with her light chestnut hair in a ponytail, nodded cheerfully. Apart from the colouring, they were curiously alike; slim and rather shorter than middle height, both dressed in baggy trousers, chequered shirts and leather boots laced tightly over the trousers.  
  
”And Huw Carmichael and Kenneth Murray,” continued the Professor, indicating the two remaining students. One was a lad with light-brown hair and a shy smile who seemed to be some years younger than the other students. The other a youth with clear blue eyes, and hair so blond it was almost white.  
  
”Did you say you were from the Air Police?” said Kenneth interested. ”I didn’t know there was such a thing.”  
  
”Come to that, I didn’t know there was such a thing as a pollen analysis,” retorted Ginger, who remembered that it was the blonde student who had been so definite about not getting ashes in the trench.  
  
The students smiled, and Kenneth laughed a bit self-conscious.  
  
”I was a bit rude, wasn’t I? I’m sorry, but you can learn immensely by looking at common dirt in a microscope. Pollen analysis shows what kind of plant-life there used to be, and that tells us about the climate, and whether a place was used for farming. It can even be helpful in dating artefacts found in situ.”

 ”What exactly are you looking for here?” inquired Ginger.  
  
The students looked at Professor Hayward, who was happy to oblige.  
  
”To put it shortly, there are Neolithic and probably Mesolithic remains in the caves and rock-shelters here. We’re hoping to find graves, it seems to have been a common enough practice to bury the dead in caves. It’s not unusual to find Neolithic burials that go straight through Mesolithic culture deposits. It takes a while to get an excavation going, because one needs to get down to the interesting strata. But we’ve already found some particularly nice sherds of pottery and a beautiful, polished adze. We’re taking dirt samples too, of course, to analyse for pollen, phosphate et cetera when we get back home.”  
  
Ginger sneaked a look at his two colleagues; by their blank faces, he suspected that neither of them understood much either, but none of them seemed prepared to admit it.  
  
”Sorry, Neolithic?” he put in.  
  
”Ah – that would be New Stone Age. As opposed to Palaeolithic, Old Stone Age, and Mesolithic, Middle Stone Age. John Lubbock, Baron Avebury, was the first to divide the Stone Age in an old and a new period – the middle came later. He was a great friend of Charles Darwin, you know, and was more than a bit inspired by the idea of evolution when it came to human history too.”  
  
Biggles decided it was time to get down to business and broke in.  
  
”Yes, Professor, I’m sure it’s all very interesting, but we were asked to help find you because the authorities believed that you were in trouble. When your communication ended, without forewarning, it was taken for granted that some kind of accident had occurred. We understand there is still guerrilla activity in Malaya, which I suppose is one reason why people are worried.”  
  
”We haven’t seen or heard a soul,” said Doctor Saint-Simon with a shrug. ”I don’t suppose the guerrilla has any activity around here, it’s too far away from anyone they would care to fight.”  
  
”Makes no sense that anyone would miss us,” put in Doctor Barton. ”We were never going to bring the radio up here. We only have a small hand generator, and that’s for charging batteries to get some light when we work inside the caves. We wouldn’t have used the radio a lot, anyway.”  
  
”Yes, we were meant to stay here for several weeks,” said Professor Hayward.  
  
”Losing the boat was no reason to change our plans. If we need to, we can walk to the closest Sakai settlement in a few days, and it’s less than a weeks travel to where we can find transportation. Several of our party is from this country, so we're not helpless when it comes to finding our way, you know. But we did send one man in a canoe downstream to get in touch with civilisation, because we didn’t want people to get worried. He was meant to contact the Sultan and later bring a new boat up here. He should have been able to get to a place with wireless communication several days ago. Haven’t you heard from him?”

Biggles draw thoughtfully on his cigarette before he answered.  
  
”No, no-one has heard from your party since your last radio transmission. What’s more, no-one has heard from the pilot who went out searching for you either.”  
  
”A pilot? Who would that be?”  
  
”A man named Cotterill. He worked for the Sultan of Perak, from what I heard. He took off last Thursday in a plane that should have been able to reach you, and seems to have disappeared into thin air.”  
  
The dark young woman looked up with a worried frown.  
  
”Why, that’s Peter, my father’s personal pilot. You mean he’s lost? How awful!”  
  
Biggles’ hazel eyes moved around the group.  
  
”Haven’t you seen or heard anything of an aircraft?” he asked.  
  
The Professor exchanged looks with some of his party before he answered.  
  
”Ye-es, actually, we’ve seen a plane once or twice. Can’t understand what they’re doing here, either, we thought we were going to be in the middle of nowhere. And the plane we saw wasn’t the kind of plane one would expect to see here; useless for transport.”  
  
”What type of plane?”  
  
”It looked like a fighter plane. I’m not terribly good at plane types, though, being an army man myself.”  
  
”Why, dash it,” exclaimed Bertie, dropping his monocle but catching it with the ease of long experience.  
  
”You never heard it use its guns?” Biggles asked sharply.  
  
Aminâh, still looking taken aback by the news of the missing pilot, answered.  
  
”No, and it has never been flying over us, we’ve only seen a glimpse of it at a distance. The high forest makes it difficult to see around us, as you can see for yourselves.”  
  
”Besides, we might not even hear if someone were shooting. The jungle sounds can be quite loud. We might not notice, you know,” remarked Helen.  
  
”We’d probably have thought it was an uncommonly noisy cicada,” agreed David.  
  
Biggles tried to imagine a cicada that sounded like the machine-guns of a fighter plane, but decided not to push to issue.

 ”Tell us about the fire,” he asked instead. ”When did it happen? Was your radio destroyed in it?”  
  
”Yes, the radio went with the boat, but that and the photo development equipment was really all we lost in the fire, so we counted ourselves lucky,” the Professor answered. ”Can’t imagine what started it, though. I mean, it was in the middle of a lot of water, no engine running or anything. It happened the day after we came, in the morning. We had taken most of our equipment up here already, because we didn’t intend to go back to the boat every day. But we left the radio there, it was built for a boat and not to haul around in the jungle. I suppose there must have been some spark when we turned off the engine, and that something had been smouldering for a long time before it finally caught fire. Funny, all the same.”  
  
”What makes you so certain it was an accident?”  
  
The archaeology team stared at Biggles.  
  
”What else, Sergeant – Biggleswade, was it?” said Doctor Barton.  
  
”Bigglesworth.”  
  
”Bigglesworth. We’re alone here, as far as we know, and why would any of us set fire to out own boat? Makes no sense.”  
  
”It might seem like that, but that’s because there is a lot we don’t know yet,” retorted Biggles calmly.  
  
”It comes to this. Your boat has been wrecked. Your messenger in the canoe is missing. A professional pilot is lost. It could be that someone doesn’t want people to come out here. What’s so important in these parts of the jungle?”  
  
The party stared incredulously at Biggles for some seconds. Then several of them started talking at once, and words like ”why?”, ”silly notion”, and ”there’s nothing here of interest to anyone but us” blended into a general buzz.  
  
Ginger started to look a bit uncomfortable.  
  
”Um, Biggles – if someone really is trying keep this place for himself...”  
  
”Yes?”  
  
”I mean, if they noticed a canoe and decided to stop it, they can’t have missed us. And we did leave Algy and the plane...”  
  
Biggles frowned.  
  
”You’re right, we should get back. The best thing we can do is...”  
  
He was cut short by the faint but unmistakable sounds of distant gunshots, coming from the general direction of where the Gosling was moored. The whole party turned and stared, surprise written all over their faces.  
  
Biggles stood up abruptly but stopped dead.  
  
”Shouldn’t we...?” Ginger asked, starting to move.  
  
”What’s the use?” Biggles said tersely. ”It took us more than an hour to get here, we can’t rush back in a minute.” He stared, tightlipped, in the direction of the gunshots.

 

* * *

 A sudden flurry of wings in a shrub and a paroquet going quiet was the first signs that something was going on close to the aircraft. Algy was at the moment sitting in the cockpit, glancing in his Sunday Times. He had divided his time between inside and outside, gazing around the jungle and checking the plane’s position in the water. He didn’t really expect to see anything out of the ordinary, but had over the years been threatened by too many beasts of the ark to take any risks.  
  
The sound made Algy look up from the newspaper and check his watch. The others had been gone for less than two hours; considering the rough and uneven ground, it was improbable that they had had time to locate the archaeological team and return in such a short while. On the other hand, they might have met some of the team or found a message or important information by the wreck.  
  
He put the paper away, opened the door and climbed up on the nose of the aircraft, looking around the river. He heard nothing to indicate that Biggles and the others were returning, but the current of the river, however gentle, still made a noise that might drown the sound of walking men.  
  
He didn’t bother to call out, but remained on top of the plane, looking up and down the bank where the others had disappeared earlier. After a minute, he heard a rustling sound, but this time he could make out that it came from the other side of the river.  
  
Algy turned, brown eyes calmly following the river bank, assuming that he’d spot an animal going down to the water. He startled when he saw, not the head of a deer or the striped body of a tiger, but the short glimmer of sunlight on polished metal. He turned further around to the other side, supporting himself on the gently rocking plane with a hand on an engine.  
  
”Hello! Who is it?” he called, looking intensely over the river.  
  
He was now starting to feel a bit worried; a person with amiable intentions would have answered and showed himself, he reasoned, which meant that the unknown person probably was up to no good. He crouched down on the nose, considering what to do; stay on guard and wait for the others, or prepare to lift-off.  
  
Algy was spared further dithering when a rifle went off, and he heard the unmistakable sound of bullet against metal. He flew himself down and crawled the short distance to the mooring-ring where the machine was anchored to a tree, gripped the ring and let his body slide down the side of the plane, at the same time groping franticly after his pocket knife. After cutting the heavy rope, he stayed in the water to keep the machine between him and the gunman – or gunmen, as he by now had put it down to – and heaved himself back up towards the door.

After what seemed to Ginger to be an eternity, but probably only was a minute, they heard the sound of the aircraft starting. The shooting continued, and from the pace of the discharges they could tell that there were only one or two shots, armed with rifles and not machine guns. But it was impossible to guess how close to the riflemen were to the plane.  
  
Ginger breathed out when the Gosling became visible over the jungle, in a much steeper lift-off than would be advisable under normal circumstances. The plane turned sharply towards them, probably to veer away.  
  
Bertie let go of Biggles’ arm, which he had gripped without even noticing it.  
  
”By Jove, that gave me a fright”, he murmured apologetically. ”He seems to be away all right.”  
  
As far as the men on the ground could make out, the gunmen hadn’t hit anything vital, for the Gosling seemed steady enough in the air. After a minute, the plane levelled out and started to fly in a big circle on their side of the jungle. Soon the plane passed straight over the excavation area, but Algy made no effort to make contact.  
  
The plane continued in a circle for a while before it climbed up and flew in the direction from where it had come.  
  
”That’s it,” said Biggles. ”He can’t get down anywhere else to pick us up, and he can’t very well wait for us to get back to the landing place and take care of those toughs. He won’t be back today.”  
  
”I say, old chap, he must have seen us, but he completely ignored us. Not as much as a waggle of the old wings. I call that pretty steep, what?” remarked Bertie.  
  
Biggles shrugged.  
  
”He might have wanted to avoid letting the enemy know our position. We don’t know if these people know what the party is doing here, or where they are.”  
  
”At least he’ll be able to find us right away tomorrow, and tell the authorities where we are,” put in Ginger optimistically.  
  
”Possibly,” said Biggles in an odd voice.  
  
”What do you mean, old bean?”  
  
Biggles groped in the back pockets of his pants.  
  
”I mean that we took the map, so he’ll have to fly by his memory.”  
  
Bertie took out his eyeglass and gave it a good polish.  
  
”At least he stared at the map all the way here, so he should have a sporting chance,” he said in an encouraging voice. ”It’s not as if you’d left me with the plane, I don’t even know which bally river we’ve been staring at all day.”  
  
Biggles strolled a bit away from the archaeological party, with Ginger and Bertie at his heels. He found himself a rock to sit down on and stared over the tree-tops.  
  
”Here we are, abandoned in the middle of a perishing jungle, our plane being shot to bits and pieces, and our supposed rescuees don’t want to be rescued; they’re perfectly happy where they are. Could somebody please tell me why we never refuse to go on these expeditions?”  
  
He took out his cigarette case, opened it and stared morosely at his three remaining cigarettes.  
  
”I suppose because it’s what they pay us to do, old boy,” remarked Bertie with a shrug.


	5. Chapter Three

After the Gosling had disappeared from the sky, the archaeological team stayed under the canvas roof, trying to get their heads around the new circumstances. The policemen remained by the boulder a bit away, exchanging a few words while pondering the situation.  
  
After a while Professor Hayward got on his feet.  
  
”All right, we’re not helping anyone by sitting here. We might as well get on with our work.”  
  
The students nodded, still a bit dazed, and went off. The two scholars slowly walked towards one of the caves, while Professor Hayward hesitated for a moment before walking over to Biggles and the others.  
  
”Nasty business, this,” he greeted the airmen. ”Do you have any idea what will happen now?”  
  
Biggles stared after the long-gone aeroplane for some seconds before answering.  
  
”We’re not too bad off, considering. In a few hours our pilot – Lacey – will have landed in Singapore, unless he decides to go to the closest RAF base in Kuala Lumpur. The authorities will be told where you are, and no doubt a boat will be procured and start up here pretty soon. The trouble is, he only knows there were some men armed with firearms who attacked him. Not enough to make a song and dance number to the government about. He’ll be in for a surprise if this fighter plane of yours comes out of the blue.”  
  
”Yes, yes, we’ll have to wait and see,” murmured the Professor. ”Until he can pick you up, we’ll try to make you as comfortable as we can. I’ll be happy to vacate my tent and move in with my colleagues, so you can stay in there. It will be a bit cramped for three people, I’m afraid, but it’s the best we can do. You wouldn’t want to stay outside without any protection, the mosquitoes are quite a pest.”  
  
Biggles thanked the Professor and continued:  
  
”I’d really like to know what these people are so protective about, but I don’t think it would be a good idea to go hunting for them right away. Moving in the jungle is a tedious and slow business, and I’d prefer not to push off and risk being away when Algy comes back.”

Meanwhile, the students had gone back to the trench that Bertie had visited earlier on. Some of the native workers had already started to work in the other trench, taking the top soil away in a wider area.  
  
David sat down to continue sketching the layout of the deeper trench, with the help of a large wooden frame with strings to provide a grid-pattern. The other four went down and continued to peel the top layer of dirt away carefully, putting it in buckets that two of the workers hauled away.  
  
After a while, Huw put his trowel down and put words to what they were all thinking.  
  
”Strange, isn’t it; a few hours ago we didn’t have a problem in the world. Enjoying ourselves with spade and bucket. Almost playing Swiss Family Robinson, in fact. And now it feels like someone is out to get us, just because we came here.”  
  
The others made sounds of agreement.  
  
”Still, as soon as that pilot lands he can let people know where we are. My father will get a new boat up here pretty soon. If the plane does get back, that is,” put in Aminâh.  
  
”Why not? It got away all right.”  
  
”We didn’t see anyone shoot down Peter’s plane, either,” Aminâh said shortly and bent down intensely over a shadow in the earth.  
  
”Did you know him well?” Helen asked, after some seconds of silence.  
  
Aminâh shot a look over her shoulder, flashed a quick smile and shook her head.  
  
”Not really, when you think about it. I don’t know if he had a family in England or anything. He worked for my father for a long time, but I’ve been in England most of the time. He flew me around to get here and there, mostly coming and going, actually.”  
  
”We don’t even know if he has been shot down; he could have had an accident. A bird crashing into the motor can be fatal, or so I’ve read. That policeman might be exaggerating,” said Kenneth.  
  
”True, but he’ll be just as dead”.

They continued to work quietly for a while longer, until Helen looked up with a puzzled frown.  
  
”I could have sworn these sherds were in situ before lunch. I distinctly remember admiring the cord-pattern. But now the pattern doesn’t match.”  
  
”The chap with the monocle was in the trench when I came out,” observed Kenneth. ”Considering their knowledge of archaeology seems to fit on a pin-head, I wouldn’t be surprised if he shuffled it around.”  
  
The students glared in the general direction of the policemen.  
  
”And the youngish fellow had actually picked up a trowel, I daren’t even think about what he was doing,” added Kenneth.  
  
”Who was that again? Bertie Lissie?”  
  
”No, that must be Ginger, look at his hair. Bertie is the blond one who talks like Bertie Wooster. Very aptly named, these policemen. I wonder what the fellow in the plane is called,” said David.  
  
The students paused briefly, trying to find a suitable name.  
  
”Targetson?”  
  
Their giggles attracted the attention of Bertie and Ginger, who were already pretty bored with the situation. They went up to the trench, Bertie adjusting his monocle and curiously looking down into the pit.  
  
”Should we congratulate on some stunning find here, chaps? A flint knife or some jolly thing like that?”  
  
”Flint knife?” echoed Huw. ”We should be so lucky, that would be a sensation. There’s never been a flint knife found in Malaya. Neolithic man probably mostly used bamboo for his knives.”  
  
”Fancy that”, murmured Bertie.  
  
”Besides, no flint here,” Aminâh added. ”The local stone is difficult to work to a sharp edge. But bamboo works a treat for sharp objects, we’ve made some knives ourselves here.”  
  
With only a slight twitch on his lips, David asked:  
  
”By the way, what’s the name of your colleague, the one in the plane?”  
  
The other students tried valiantly to retain their composure.  
  
”That’s Algy Lacey. Why?” said Ginger, puzzled.  
  
”Let’s not be so modest, old chap. The Honourable Algernon Montgomery Lacey, actually. Our team expert on guarding aeroplanes. He always manages to fly them away in the last moment. Sometimes he even comes back.”  
  
”I believe you forgot one or two medals there,” said Ginger drily, ”but never mind, who can remember which one?”  
  
”Algernon... Hm, I’m afraid that’s no good at all,” said David pensively.  
  
The other students gave up and collapsed laughing down in the trench.  
  
Bertie shook his head sadly.  
  
”I told you students were a species of their own, Ginger. I’ve always been grateful I escaped in time. And imagine your undercover passport says ’student’, doesn’t it?”  
  
”I’m afraid we must appear to be terribly rude,” said Helen, when she had collected enough of her breath to be able to talk. ”We’re sorry, really, we were just joking a bit about names. Silly thing to do.”  
  
”Quite natural that you would be a bit stirred after what’s happened,” put in Ginger. ”Not what you’re used to, I wager. Is it the first time you’re away on a dig?”  
  
”No, we’ve been on digs at home, but it’s the first time for all of us abroad. Well, except for Aminâh of course, who’s actually at home here, only I don’t think you’ve been digging here, have you, Highness?” said David.  
  
”Only to try to keep the rose garden in shape,” laughed Aminâh. ”Besides, I’m going to specialise in laboratory work. Helen might love her pottery, but mark my word, carbon dating and chemical analysis will be the future of archaeology.”  
  
”Potty in the head, that’s me,” agreed Helen cheerfully. ”I’m after Doctor Barton’s job.”  
  
”That’s all very well, both of you, but you’ll still need to dig to find your precious shards and coffins and whatnot to analyse,” remarked Kenneth.  
  
”I say, those shards of pottery down there, exactly what do they tell you?” queried Bertie. ”Who’s to say the Japs didn’t drop them during the occupation, if you get my meaning?”  
  
The student turned their heads as one man to stare at him, but Bertie bravely put on his best smile.  
  
”Three feet under ground?” said Huw, trying to keep a sneer out of his voice.  
  
”If we’d found it in a burial with Japanese uniform buttons, or together with cartridges, it might have been,” put in David more calmly, ”but since we’ve found no modern stuff in the earth a couple of feet on top of them, we can be pretty certain they’re old. And if we look at them from a typological point of view they are standard Neolithic. Cord-marking is the most common ornamentation of the period.”  
  
”Oh. Jolly good. I say, Ginger, let’s waffle along to the great white chief and hear if he’s got any bright ideas, what?”

The airmen took their leave and walked away, with the students staring after them.  
  
”Is he for real?” blurted out Huw. ”Waffle along; I say; what-ho. Does anyone speak like that on this side of a Wodehouse book-cover?”  
  
”Might be a clever camouflage,” suggested Aminâh. ”If no-one takes him seriously, he could get away with most anything.”  
  
”Darn good camouflage, in that case. I wouldn’t have put him down as someone who could tie his own shoes.”  
  
”Come now, let’s be civil,” put in David. ”They came here to help us, and they probably don’t think we’re the best and brightest civilisation has to offer, either. Let’s finish this trench, and perhaps the Professor will be nice and let us in to one of those cool, sweet caves where the sun doesn’t reach by the end of the month.”  
  
Ginger and Bertie came up to Biggles, who was sitting by himself on the boulder.  
  
”We’ve been trying to ingratiate ourselves with the natives, but I’m afraid they’re not too impressed,” said Bertie in melancholy tones. ”What’s the plan, and all that?”  
  
”Wait for Algy to come back, and then use the machine to get the authorities wise to what is happening up here,” replied Biggles drily. ”Or did you have something better in mind?”  
  
”Absolutely not, old warrior,” protested Bertie, ”you know strategy isn’t my cup of tea.”  
  
”It’s just plain boring, doing nothing,” declared Ginger and sat down beside Biggles.  
  
”You’re probably right about staying put until we can get in touch with Algy, but I’d really like to find out what’s going on out here that’s worth killing for.”  
  
”Nothing, I would say,” said Biggles softly. ”Only some people put a very low price on human lives.”  
  
Bertie took out his monocle and mechanically started to polish it.  
  
”It’s a frightfully big jungle, laddie, and we don’t even know on what side of the river to hunt for these trigger-happy fellows,” he observed.  
  
”I don’t suppose any of the digging team would know on which side the fighter plane has it’s base,” mused Ginger.  
  
”Let’s stay out of their hair for a while,” said Biggles firmly. ”They want to get on with their work, and it’s probably better if they’re too occupied to worry about what’s going on.”  
  
They went up a bit on a gentle part of the hillside, to get some distance to the mosquito-infested jungle, and found a shaded spot to sit down and wait out the day.  
  
Shortly after they witnessed a peak of activity in the rock-shelter. The students gathered in one corner of the trench, pointed and talked in excited voices, and called out the senior archaeologists from the cave. None of the airmen felt inclined to get involved in another discussion of Malayan prehistory, however, and they stayed on the hillside.

As Ginger had predicted, the afternoon dragged on. They sat mostly in silence, staring out over the clearing and the jungle behind, Bertie polishing his eyeglass with regular intervals and Biggles fidgeting with his cigarette-case*.  
  
Around five o’clock, the Professor and his colleagues appeared once more from the cave, while the students cleaned up their tools and put them in some of the buckets.  
  
Aminâh and Helen collected a piece of tarpaulin and covered a part of the excavated ground, while David brought his sketches to a nearby cave.  
  
The team closed in on the tables by the edge of the forest, while Professor Hayward walked towards the airmen.  
  
”Please join us for dinner,” he called and waited for them to come down.  
  
”Night comes quickly here in the tropics, as you know. We eat as late as we can, to take full advantage of the daylight. We don’t have much in the way of artificial light, and we use that mainly for work in the caves.”  
  
”I heard of a chap who spent most of the occupation with the guerrilla in Malaya. When the battery of his torch ran out he put a handful of fireflies or some kind of luminous centipede inside the torch, and he could actually read a map or follow a path in that light. Jolly good idea, what?” volunteered Bertie.  
  
”We might try that when we run out of paraffin for our lamps,” smiled the Professor.  
  
They walked the few yards to the tables, where the team members were helping themselves to food from several big pots.  
  
”How do you get your food? You couldn’t bring enough on the boat, surely?” asked Ginger.  
  
Kenneth, standing in line for his helping, let out a short laugh.  
  
”No? You could have fooled us, when we were carrying all the blasted stuff up here from the boat. I must have carried five loads, and I couldn’t even count how many times the native workers went.”  
  
”We brought quite a lot foodstuff,” agreed Doctor Saint-Simon, who was already seated, ”but of course nowhere near enough to live on for several weeks. We have dried food, like fish and prawns, and seasoning; ginger and curry powder and salt. We took as much rise, sweet potato and tapioca as we could, too.”  
  
”Quail and hornbill are pretty much our staple diet,” put in Professor Hayward. ”We have a couple of decent hunters with us, and a Chinese who’s a jolly good cook. One of the Malays even has a pig-tailed monkey that is trained to climb palm trees and shake down coconuts, but unfortunately we haven’t found any nearby. A stew on coconut milk would be a welcome change.”  
  
”On today’s menu you will find quail and bamboo shoots, fresh from the neighbourhood, with rice and curry,” said Helen, sitting down with her plate. ”And some unspecified vegetable; we call it the green and stalky one. We have dug a little kitchen-garden where we’ve planted vegetables, but they’re not ready yet.”  
  
”That’s one thing we’re good at; digging,” grunted Huw. ”We’ve trained at culture layers from Roman, Saxon and Iron Age times, and we come here to dig a flower bed.”  
  
The party squeezed themselves around the tables and ate, eagerly discussing the first remains of a skeleton that the students had unearthed in the rock-shelter. This was, as far as Ginger could make out, just what they had been hoping for and certainly more interesting than the existence of armed men or fighter planes in the jungle.  
  
About six o’clock it was clear that the day was coming to an end, as the details of the jungle started to disappear in dusk.  
  
”As I said, not much to do here after dark,” remarked Professor Hayward. ”I’d better show you to your tent while it’s light enough to find the way; we’ve dug out some spare clothes for you, too. We usually stay up for a while, cleaning any finds we’ve got and so on, well wrapped up to protect us against everything that flies, but you might not find that terribly exciting.”  
  
”The mosquitoes here are awful,” said David calmly. ”Be sure to cover your ankles and wrists too. There are night mosquitoes and day mosquitos, so at least you get some change. If you get badly bitten, you might swell up something horrible.”  
  
”If you don’t actually contract malaria,” added Kenneth gloomily.  
  
”We’ll try to avoid that, thank you,” replied Biggles lightly as they went away with the Professor.  
  
A short walk around the side of the hill brought them to a plateau, a bit higher up than the clearing they just had left. Several tents were put up, in a pattern somewhat reminiscent to an ancient roman military camp. Professor Hayward led the way to a tent close to the middle and invited the airmen to enter.  
  
”As I said, a bit cramped for the three of you, I’m afraid. But hopefully it’s only for the night.”  
  
”We’re happy for any shelter,” said Biggles sincerely. ”Thank you, Professor, and good night.”  
  
During their short walk darkness had spread swiftly from the jungle, into the clearing and over the hillside. The Professor took out a torch from one of his bulging pockets and went back towards the clearing.  
  
Bertie rummaged in his the haversack and, to his relief, found that they had brought a torch of their own. He lit it to examine their shelter, but Biggles had other plans.  
  
”I don’t know about you, but I’m going up on the hill for a while before I turn in.”  
  
The others readily agreed, not looking forward to spending a long night in a cramped tent. They went up on a part of the lower slope, where it was possible to get a foothold.  
  
”Better switch that off as long as we sit here, or we shall be the target for every mosquito in the vicinity,” remarked Biggles to Bertie as he sat down and took out his cigarette case. He was now down to two cigarettes; with a sigh he took one of them, tapped it against the back of his hand and lit it.  
  
They sat for a while, looking out over the area, where the faint light from the archaeological party broke the monotony of tropical night. In the sky stars faded into visibility, in between dark patches where clouds were drifting by, and over the ground small lights lit up, flying about quickly.  
  
”I say, you don’t think we could spot these chappies by their light, do you,” suggested Bertie.  
  
Ginger immediately sprang up.  
  
”Great idea!”  
  
With some difficulty, he scrambled ten yards further up and started surveying the landscape. After some minutes he came down again, bringing with him a lot of pebbles and loose rocks.  
  
”I can’t see anything.”  
  
Biggles, who had been savouring his penultimate cigarette, stubbed it thoroughly on the ground and remarked:  
  
”The jungle is actually higher than you climbed up, in case you haven’t noticed. That would make it difficult to see down to the ground level.”  
  
”It was a good idea, while it lasted,” said Bertie philosophically.  
  


* * *

  
_* Which is, of course, in silver and properly marked ”James C. Bigglesworth”, in case some thug would need it to identify him._


	6. Chapter Four

Ginger woke up by the first light to the mournful ululation of gibbons, who herald each new day in the jungle. He sat up and, seeing that both Biggles and Bertie had already left the tent, wasted no time rising. Sunlight, through a soft cover of clouds, fell over the hill and treetops, though it still was fairly dark inside the jungle.  
  
He followed the edge of the hill and spotted Biggles and Bertie, sitting together with the earliest risers in the archaeology team under the canvas roof. In no particular hurry, he climbed up a bit on the slope and sat down to watch the jungle light up. With daylight came new voices to the vociferous jungle chorus of birds, beasts and insects; and human speech, as more of the team turned up for breakfast.  
  
Having enjoyed the the sunrise, he went down to the others, exchanged several ”good mornings” and sat down for breakfast with Biggles and Bertie.  
  
”Did you spot anything interesting up there?” said Biggles with mild sarcasm.  
  
”Yes, thank you, a beautiful morning, but no planes,” answered Ginger, too used to Biggles’ moods to take much notice.  
  
”When do you think Algy will get here?” put in Bertie, helping himself to another biscuit.  
  
”He should be here before nine thirty. He ought to be in the air by now, and the trip won’t take him more than two and a half hours, if the wind hasn’t changed since yesterday.”  
  
”Should we go down to the river and meet him?”  
  
”No, we’d better stay here. He might have some other idea than picking us up down there, and it will be easier for him to drop a message here. No risk that it would fall in the river, for one thing.”  
  
”Good thinking, old chap,” agreed Bertie. ”I wouldn’t like to have to take a swim to fetch some bally message. The water was filthy, and probably crawling with crocodiles and piranhas and whatnots.”  
  
”It’s time you read up on your geography, Bertie. Piranhas only exist in South America. For your information, that’s on the other side of the world,” snapped Biggles.  
  
”And will you go on excavating on the same spot as yesterday?” said Ginger to the archaeologists, trying to make polite conversation.  
  
He got murmurs of assent in reply.  
  
”What would be your, how should I put it, dream find?”  
  
This turned out to be the wrong kind of question; Ginger received a look from Professor Hayward that was probably quite effective in putting younger students, trying to be witty, in their place.  
  
”Some people think archaeology is just about gold and single artefacts. There is this chap Jones, from a university in the States, whose mission in life seems to be to find extraordinary things for one museum or the other. But that’s not what’s really important – the point is to learn and understand about people who lived long before our time,” said Professor Hayward.  
  
”Of course, the odd, nice find for a museum never hurts, and you wouldn’t turn your nose down at a gold bracelet,” put in Doctor Saint-Simon cheerfully. ”Publicity is good for funding the next dig. And you get a place in the history books that all the poor school-kids have to read.”  
  
Bertie looked up.  
  
”Too true,” he agreed. ”I recall reading about this chap who found Troy, and he got the gold to prove it. Some German bloke, I believe.”  
  
”Don’t talk to me about Troy,” grunted the Professor. ”Schliemann dug straight through at least half a dozen civilisations, without even noticing, and then smuggled out the gold. A blasted treasure-hunter, that’s what he was!”  
  
Biggles, remembering how he had treated the lost gold of Atahualpa in his youth, decided to keep quiet. He took up his cigarette case, flicked it open, and considered his last remaining cigarette. With a sigh, he closed it again.  
  
”Yes, well, since we’re digging Neolithic and possibly Mesolithic cultures, gold is hardly likely to be among our artefacts,” remarked Doctor Barton. ”Even a glass bead would be a sensation, actually. I’m hoping to find complete vessels myself. Not a lot of those found yet, it would be nice to break the record of Noon. He found no less than eight unbroken vessels in Gua Cha before the war.”  
  
”I see. So there’s no gold in this particular culture,” remarked Ginger, happy to at least have picked up some archaeological lingo.  
  
”No. That’s why we call it the Stone Age, you see. No metal working,” replied the Professor blandly.  
  
Ginger could hear some of the students trying not to laugh and decided he had done enough polite conversation, but Helen gave him an encouraging smile from her seat opposite the table.  
  
”Don’t worry, we all have our fields of expertise. Just think about how lost the bunch of us would be in a cockpit. My brother was a navigator in the RAF, and he failed miserably in teaching me the difference between a loop and a roll. Our younger sister was all ears when he told us about the rudder or whatever, but I always excused myself to go and study. The older, the better, that’s my motto.”

 

The archaeologists soon finished their breakfast and went back to their work in the trenches. The airmen walked over to the tent to clean up and put what little they had in order. When they returned, Bertie and Ginger sat down at the table and found themselves a deck of card. Biggles paced up and down the clearing, sometimes pausing to open his cigarette case.  
  
He held out until a few minutes past eight, when he leaned against a steep part of the hillside and took out the last cigarette. He looked at it with a sad expression, lit it and inhaled slowly, letting the smoke out through his nostrils.  
  
Bertie, still playing cards with Ginger, looked thoughtfully over the clearing at Biggles.  
  
”You don’t think there is any tobacco to be found around here, do you? If we’re stuck here for a long time, we might have to do something about Biggles.”  
  
”Don’t be daft,” said Ginger, exasperated. ”You don’t find cigarettes growing on trees.”  
  
”I didn’t say anything about cigarette-trees, old boy, but I believe tobacco-leaves grows on bushes. Only I’m not sure they grow in Malaya. Now, if we’d only been in Cuba, we could have kept Biggles well stocked.”  
  
Ginger put down his cards and gave Bertie a curious look.  
  
”Would you recognise a plant if you saw it?”  
  
”Afraid not, laddie. I was rather hoping you would. Do you suppose there is something else around here to smoke?”  
  
Ginger laughed, despite himself.  
  
”I do have a small notebook somewhere, anyway, so if you find any interesting leaves, we could at least wrap them in a slip of paper,” he grinned.  
  
By then, Biggles had finished his cigarette and gone back to wander aimlessly around the clearing, sometimes disappearing into one of the cave mouths or behind a tree at the jungle edge.  
  
After quite a while, he came up to the table and sat down, looking disapprovingly at his two Air-Constables, still with playing cards in their hands.  
  
”Is that the best occupation you can think of?”  
  
”A bit early to start making a raft, isn’t it, old boy?” said Bertie reasonably. ”We’re still hoping Algy will fetch us so we can bring in the cavalry, and all that, aren’t we?”  
  
Biggles grumbled something inaudible, took out his petrol lighter and started flicking it on and off.  
  
When they had played out their hand, and Bertie started shuffle the deck, Ginger offered:  
  
”Do you want to sit in? Better than doing nothing.”  
  
”No, thanks,” said Biggles with exaggerated politeness, and continued to fiddle with his lighter.  
  
Bertie gave Ginger a comforting smile and dealt the playing cards once more.  
  
A few minutes past nine they could hear the sound of an aeroplane approaching. Biggles and the others walked out into the clearing and searched the sky, anxious to find out whether it was Algy or the infamous fighter plane. The archaeologists and the students, working in the two trenches in the rock-shelter, stopped digging and looked up.  
  
”Sounds like the Gosling all right,” remarked Ginger.  
  
”About time, too,” muttered Biggles, having conveniently forgotten his own predicted timetable from earlier in the morning.

 

Presently they spotted their plane, flying under the cloud ceiling. It turned in a big circle around the clearing, descending rapidly until they lost sight of it over the treetops. Soon the plane flew over the excavation area at lowest possible speed, and they could see that the pilot was holding something by an open window. He dropped a bundle, attached to a small parachute; it fell to the ground close to the hillside, two feet from a tin box that once had contained biscuits.  
  
”Hey!” shrieked Huw, ”watch out, that’s some of our best pottery!”  
  
”I wish you people could look what you’re doing. You’re liable to smash all our finds before we even get them out of here,” muttered Professor Hayward darkly.  
  
Biggles gave the Professor a look that could have decapitated a sensitive person.  
  
”If we don’t get in touch with him, you’re likely to be stuck here with your precious shards until all your curry powder is long gone,” he reminded them trenchantly, and went to open the bundle. Out fell a sturdy notebook, some rounds of ammunition for their automatics, and several packages of cigarettes.  
  
He heard a choked giggle from behind him and admonished:  
  
”All right, Ginger. Take care of the ammunition, will you, and behave.”  
  
”Right, chief,” grinned Ginger.  
  
Biggles tore open one of the cigarette packs, took out a cigarette and lit it.  
  
”Well, what has old Algy to say for himself?” demanded Bertie. ”Read it out, will you?”  
  
Biggles draw long on his cigarette before he took up the notebook, opened it and eyed through the message.  
  
”Will land where you went ashore at eleven today. If you’re unable to get there, or to keep the place secure, light a signal fire when I come back. Nowhere else close to land, I will wait further down the river,” he read out aloud.  
  
”That gives us almost two hours, plenty of time to go there and check. That shouldn’t be a problem, but what if that fighter turns up?” put in Ginger.  
  
Once more Biggles took a deep draw on his cigarette and tapped the ash off the cigarette before answering.  
  
”Let’s get cracking. At least we can make certain that the landing place is secure. We might be lucky, they didn’t fly out yesterday, perhaps they’ve missed him again. If it does turn up, well, there’s not much we can do from down here.”

 

”We’ll come with you, some of us,” announced the Professor curtly. ”To give you a hand if needed to take care of these crooks. We’ll bring some of our workers, they are used to finding the best footpath. They can cut a track for us with parangs, too.”  
  
Biggles hesitated, not infatuated with the idea of dragging civilians into a possible ambush, but he realised that a helping hand might come in handy.  
  
”All right, but you will have to stay in the background and obey orders. We don’t want you to get into the field of fire, if someone starts shooting.”  
  
A few minutes buzzing followed, while the Professor decided who were going to accompany the airmen and gave instructions for the continued work to those who stayed. Meanwhile, Biggles, Ginger and Bertie checked their automatics and divided the ammunition between them.  
  
”If everything goes all right, you, Bertie, get back with Algy to tell the authorities what’s happening. They need to get the military up here to take care of whoever has their own hostile airforce in the jungle. Ginger and I will stay for the time being. We don’t want to leave these people undefended,” Biggles declared.  
  
”Right-ho, old boy,” Bertie agreed.  
  
Some minutes later, the party was ready to go. Besides the airmen, the senior archaeologists were coming, together with three of the native workers. The students, somewhat to their chagrin, were instructed to stay well away from trouble and continue to excavate what promised to be the first burial of the dig.  
  
The party walked back the way Biggles and the others had come, and with the help of the accompanying workers they made a decent if narrow trail beside the river up to the proposed landing-place. The last part they went cautiously, looking and listening for signs of enemy presence, but the jungle was calm enough. When they reached the strait where they expected Algy they sat down and waited, still on guard for newcomers.  
  
Five minutes before the time set for pick-up, they heard the engines of the Gosling approaching.  
  
”Good old Algy, right on time,” averred Bertie, rising from a mangrove root.  
  
”Things might go well, after all,” remarked Ginger on an optimistic note.  
  
”Too true, laddie, not a sign of the bally infantry around the river today.”  
  
Biggles stayed alert, his hazel eyed wandering up and down the riverbanks, searching for the tell-tale glimmer of metal, but as the machine approached without any sign of trouble he started to relax.  
  
”Looks as if he's going to check out the river once more before...” Ginger started to say, but he cut himself short, stared intently over the jungle and abruptly said: ”Quiet, everyone! Listen.”  
  
A tense silence fell over the little group, and they all strained their ears to pick up unexpected sounds. Soon the three airmen, accustomed to making out the difference between engine sounds, could hear a noise, like a faint echo of their approaching plane.  
  
”It’s another machine,” declared Biggles in a flat voice. ”It’s hard to hear because the Gosling is closer, but it’s there.”  
  
They all stared intently up in the sky, but the high treetops and the cloudy sky blocked their view. Not until they could see the Gosling approaching above the jungle top over the river, Algy obviously looking for them, did they catch sight of the other machine, closing down from above.  
  
”By thunder, it’s a Spitfire!” gasped Biggles, staring at the characteristic, elliptical wings and streamlined fuselage of the approaching plane.  
  
”No – it’s two Spitfires,” corrected Bertie, having spotted a second machine somewhat higher up.  
  
”Spitfires. How the deuce did they got hold of Spitfires,” breathed Ginger miserably.

 

\-- -- --

 

Algy, seeing no warning fire, eased the plane down. He could make out several figures by the bank, all staring intently up in the sky; it would seem some of the archaeologists were eager to get back to civilisation, he mused.  
  
He flew at a low altitude along the river, preparing to make a false run over the water to make sure that no new obstacle had drifted in over night. In no particular hurry, he gained some height to get over the treetops and put the plane in a wide turn.  
  
A swift glint of metal and glass made Algy glance upwards, when he was about to complete the turn. It came as something of a shock to spot a Spitfire heading down at him, seemingly intent on attack. He stared incredulously, looked sharply around the sky, and felt his mouth go dry at the sight of yet another Spitfire.  
  
He slammed the control column over, more by reflex than conscious thought, when the closest fighter reached shooting distance and opened fire, and the Gosling skidded out of the line of bullets.  
  
After several years in the RAF, it took some mental adjustment to see Spitfires as the enemy; however, the simple fact that they were shooting at him made Algy take the leap pretty quickly. He jerked the throttle open for full speed and climbed up under the approaching fighter.  
  
Flying an unarmed and pretty slow aircraft, his only chance was to take refuge inside the clouds. But the ceiling was still a long way up, and he would need at least a minute to reach it.  
  
Algy raced for height, keeping his eyes on the reflector, while the fighters turned to pursue. He knew from experience when the planes on his tail would fire, and sideslipped to avoid the next column of bullets. But the Gosling was too easy a target from behind, and the second time he veered he could hear bullets strike the plane.  
  
”I’ll be damned if I’ll be shot down twice in a Gosling in this part of the world,” grated Algy. He threw the plane in an Immelmann turn that made the rivets creak and his eyes water, aiming straight at the following Spitfires.  
  
The fighter pilots, not prepared for such an audacious manoeuvre, scattered wildly to avoid a heads-on collision. This gained precious seconds for Algy, but lost him height, and he dragged the control column back into his stomach to rise as fast as possible. The cloud ceiling was still a fair distance up, and the Spitfire pilots soon picked up their courage, turned and came after him.  
  
The last hundred yards he kept weaving, presenting as difficult a target as possible, but the plane took some hits. The sound of shattering glass and a draught in the cockpit that made the map plaster itself to the windscreen and tossed loose objects around told Algy that at least one side window was gone.  
  
He kept racing all over the sky as a frightened snipe, until the soft opaqueness of the clouds finally enclosed the plane. He could still vaguely catch the staccato sound of machine guns, and rapidly changed course to fly in a direction back over the Spitfires.  
  
Algy let out a breath; inside the clouds the fighters would have to be lucky to find him. Or unlucky enough, for that matter, to collide with him. Deciding to make a detour on his way to the RAF station in Kuala Lumpur, closer to hand than Singapore where they had made their temporary base, he relaxed in the pilot’s seat and headed north.  
  
He glanced over his shoulder to check on the extent of damage, but couldn’t make out anything, and the draught from the smashed windows made it difficult to smell petrol, even if the tank had been hit.  
  
Still, nothing he could do about it, it wouldn’t be safe to leave the clouds for a while, Algy reasoned. He just had to fly on and take his chances.  
  
”Now, just where are those mountain ranges,” he murmured to himself.  
  
On the ground the little group of spectators stood silent, trying to make out what happened after the aircrafts had disappeared into the clouds, but soon the noise from aircrafts and machine guns vanished in the everyday sounds of a buzzing jungle and streaming water.  
  
How long they stood listening, Ginger did not know. It seemed like an eternity, but it must have been only a few minutes. Eventually Biggles let out a breath, took up a cigarette pack, and turned to the others.  
  
”The next time Algy comes back he will fly in something armed to the teeth,” he said, in a tone that suggested that no one had better imply that Algy would not, in fact, return at all.

 


	7. Chapter Five

Far from the concerned faces and hunger for information that Ginger had expected on their return to the dig, the students hardly noticed when they came back. They were gathered in a corner of the trench, the girls conscientiously cleaning the ground with brushes.

Huw waved a welcome with a heavy camera when he spotted the returning party.

”Come on, Professor, it’s fantastic! We’ve found a bracelet.”

The senior archaeologists broke out in shouts of excitement and hurried over to the rock-shelter.

”It’s definitely stone, one solid ring, right on the forearm,” said Aminâh down in the trench. ”Look, I’m sure it’s nicely polished, once we’ve got it cleaned up.”

The airmen stopped at some distance.

”I don’t get it,” confessed Ginger. ”At least two men have been killed around here, they just had a dogfight right over their heads, there is a gang of scallywags just waiting to get at their throats... And they get steamed up over a piece of polished stone.”

”Just as well. Let them bury their heads in the sand, instead of getting all worked up about something they can’t do anything about. I’d rather have them absorbed in their digging than panicking,” retorted Biggles.

They went over to the tables for a late lunch of cold dishes. Soon they were joined by the archaeologist, and the students took a brief pause from their excitement to ask about the proceedings at the river.

”If you lifted your eyes towards the sky for a minute, you know as much as we do,” said Biggles shortly. ”He was attacked by two Spitfires but took cover in the clouds. He’ll be back when he can make provisions for taking care of the fighters.”

”Yes, we did watch,” said David calmly, ”when the treetops weren’t in the way. Seemed to us that he was lucky to get away.”

”I almost shrieked out loud when he made that turn towards the fighters,” confessed Aminâh. ”I thought they were going to crash, the lot of them.”

”What’s with the ’almost’,” teased Huw. ”We heard you.”

”Yes, well, fair’s fair, Huw – we all heard you too,” retorted Kenneth. ”Only it’s a language I won’t repeat in the presence of ladies.”

”I’m sure the Spitfires came from the other side of the river,” put in Helen thoughtfully. ”I climbed up a bit and when I first spotted them, they were well on the other side.”

”The river isn’t exactly straight; how do you know they didn’t come from our side, but over a bend?” challenged Kenneth.

”Of course, I can’t be certain,” conceded Helen, ”but they weren’t flying in line with the river when I saw them. It didn’t look as if they were following the plane, I think they came from the side.”

”I hope they did. I know they can cross the river, if they did indeed put fire to our boat, but I’d still rather have them on the other side than close by,” asserted Doctor Barton.

Soon the archaeologists drifted away to continue working. Biggles and the others stayed for a while longer at the table, discussing the latest development without reaching any conclusions.

They withdrew into one of the cave mouths, where Bertie seemed content to rest in the shade, and Biggles smoked his new cigarettes at an alarming pace, but Ginger found it difficult to relax. The sight of Spitfires attacking their aircraft, in an area where they had only a few years earlier fought a war, had jiggled his nerves considerably.

He was more eager than ever to go in search of their unknown adversaries, but Biggles firmly vetoed his suggestion to make a raft and, somewhat caustically, told him to stop fiddle about.

Ginger wandered away from the cave and strolled around the clearing for a while, and then sat down under the canvas roof. He looked over at the digging students; it was beyond him what made the youngsters volunteer to travel this far only to sit in a trench and brush away dirt, an eighth of an inch by an eighth of an inch. Their excitement at finding a skeleton seemed to him slightly morbid, considering their situation.

Since he found nothing of interest in the excavation area, Ginger turned his back and gazed into the dense, tropical forest. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something move; he sharply turned to investigate, but smiled when it turned out to be nothing more sinister than butterflies. He stood up and went closer.

They were actually some of the most beautiful butterflies he had ever seen, measuring a full five inches across their expanding wings. The upper part of the body and wings were jet black while the lower half came in several, brilliantly coloured variations. He saw one in peacock blue velvet, another in glittering gold, and a third in cerise.

Ginger, who had collected butterflies during a trip in Central America in his younger days, for a moment wished that he had brought his net along to have something to occupy himself with. He could at least try to get a better view of the butterflies, he decided, and looked around for the best way to get closer.

Up to a height of almost ten feet, a close thicket was pretty much blocking the view of the jungle. Ginger eased himself between two tree-ferns to keep the stunning insects in sight, and continued to duck, push and squeeze his way through the jungle in pursuit. He continually made mental notes about landmarks and direction, to avoid any difficulty in getting back.

He finally stopped when he came to a small opening in the forest. A glimpse of sunlight shone all the way to the ground, through a crack in the clouds and a rift in the leafage. The opening, where a giant tree had once stood, was filled with hundreds of the attractive butterflies, in more colour varieties than he could keep track of, mixed with blue and crimson dragon-flies.

Ginger stood for a long time, enjoying the colourful spectacle, until he decided it was time to get back to the others. Still with a smile on his lips he turned round and followed in his own tracks; around the six feet tall fern, straight past the cotton tree, a detour around an uncommonly spiky shrub, turn right by the flowered liana that came down by the huge, smooth stem, then head for the branch with thick, green moss and vermilion-tipped orchids spilling over its sides.

A branch that was, however, nowhere to be seen when Ginger had passed the liana.

He stopped dead in his track and looked in all directions, went a few steps back to get a new view, then some steps in another direction.

After searching for several minutes Ginger had to conclude that he was standing by the wrong liana; he pushed his way through the ferns that blocked the way and went back in the direction of the spiky shrub to look for another one. He could see several lianas, but none in blossom.

He backtracked a bit further and passed the shrub to search for alternatives. He did indeed spot another spiky shrub that might be the one he had passes a while ago, but when he got there he could spot no liana adjacent to a large enough tree.

Ginger spent quite some time, going from one possible landmark to another but never finding his way towards the camp. He called for Biggles and Bertie at the top of his voice, hoping that he was close enough to be heard, but got no reply.

The anxiety Ginger felt calls for little imagination. He was undeniably lost, on what had been intended to be the shortest of walks. Indeed, Ginger could have sworn he had walked only a few hundred yards from the excavation area. But the towering forest prevented him from spotting the hilltop with the dig, and the excavation area was quite a small target in a very big jungle. It would be easily missed if he turned a few degrees in a wrong direction. Having left all his kit in camp, he didn’t even have the option of firing a shot in the hope that Biggles would hear and answer.

Ginger sat down on a fallen trunk.

”What would Biggles do in a situation like this,” he murmured to himself. ”Besides not getting himself in it, of course.”

He pondered his situation for a while and finally decided that since he could judge the position of the sun even through the clouds, in the occasional opening of the forest roof, he at least knew in which direction the river lay. His best option was to go there, follow the river until he found the wrecked boat and, more importantly, the path back to the dig. With luck, he might even strike the path on the way, Ginger reasoned.

”Butterflies – who needs them,” he murmured viciously as he got on his feet and started his arduous walk towards the river.

\-- -- --

Biggles went up to Bertie who was sitting on a bench under the canvas roof, having made a fruitless search for Ginger around the excavation site.

”You’d think the young fool had learned by now that a jungle is no place to go for a walk on your own. He might cross paths with a tiger, or a krait, or who knows what,” muttered Biggles irritably.

”You know Ginger,” said Bertie lightly, ”he can get lost from Trafalgar Square to the National Portrait Gallery. He’ll find his way back sooner or later.”

Biggles considered this statement.

”Since when do you know anything about the National Portrait Gallery?”

”I’ll have you know I've had a first class education; of course we visited from time to time to study the old masters.”

”Really? Name one.”

”Yees, there was this chap Turner who made some pretty good paintings. Of boats and stuff. Seascapes, you know.”

”I thought you said the National Portrait Gallery?”

”I did, yes.”

”What’s seascapes to do with portraits?”

”I see what you mean. I might have it confused with the other gallery, right by it. Perhaps we should start looking for poor old Ginger, what?”

Biggles sighed.

”Do you have any idea which way he went?”

”No, I’m afraid not, old boy.”

”We can’t go around in circles after him. I’ll ask if anyone saw him leave.”

Bertie looked pensively around the excavation area.

”Now that you mention it, old top, there aren’t too many people around to ask. The students seem to have vanished too.”

Biggles shook his head despondently.

”Just my luck, being stuck with a bunch of irresponsible kids.”

\-- -- --

”I wish there weren’t five of us,” Huw complained as he was working with the other students, unpacking one of the crates by the riverside. ”It makes me think of ’the Famous Five’, and that’s a bit pathetic, really.”

”Especially considering one of us should be a dog,” Helen agreed and threw a dislodged plank away.

With five pairs of hands, they had soon disassembled the crate and found what they were looking for: a collapsible rubber dinghy.

”I had completely forgotten we brought this. Good thing you remembered, Aminâh,” said Kenneth.

”I only did because it was brought on my father’s insistence,” she replied. ”He believes in being prepared. For everything. That’s why he never learned how to travel light.”

”Talking about being prepared, we might need to prepare an explanation for the Professor why we left the trench prematurely. I’m not sure he considers crossing the river to look for tracks of gunmen an approved excavation method,” remarked Huw.

”Well, it is Saturday afternoon, isn’t it? We’re entitled to some free time, aren’t we?” stated David.

”That’s one line of argument, certainly. Probably not one that he’ll fall for, but it’s something.”

”There is this about it: What can he do? He can’t very well send us home,” put in Helen.

”I suggest we think less about the Professor and more about this dinghy,” said Aminâh, prodding the heap of rubber. ”Does any one of you know how to inflate it? It doesn’t seem to come with an instruction sheet.”

Huw gave the would-be raft a dubious look.

”We don’t need to inflate it, like, ourselves, do we? I don’t think I can get that much air into my lungs.”

”I saw it in the flicks once,” volunteered Kenneth. ”I believe there is supposed to be a container with compressed air, or something. If we spread it out, we might find it. Makes sense that the container should be packed inside, doesn’t it?”

”I don’t see why it should make more sense than anything else,” retorted Aminâh frankly, ”but never mind, let’s do it.”

They struggled with the rubber material for a while, until it was spread out in front of them. Among the rubber sheet they did indeed find a container with compressed air.

”Right, chaps,” said Helen approvingly, ”let’s find some kind of mouthpiece on the dinghy and get down to business.”


	8. Chapter six

Had the situation been different, Ginger might have enjoyed part of his walk in the tropical forest. He passed a carpet of pink blossoms, fallen from one of the massive trees that made up the canopy roof of the jungle. He saw several colourful parrots and spotted a pair of hornbills with black, glossy feathering and huge, yellow beaks. Once a monkey, with slender, golden limbs, stared at him from a network of creepers.

But mostly it was rough going, shoving himself through ferns and bushes, gingerly stepping over high tree-roots, and taking detours around boggy areas to avoid having to walk in wet, slimy mud. Every time he heard something move on the ground he stiffened, nervously looking out for snakes, and he could have sworn he saw something longish with light and black stripes slither past him.

The jungle was full of sounds from buzzing insects, chirping birds and rustling leaves; it gave Ginger an eery feeling to be all alone in a place bristling with life.

He had tired of trying to whisk the mosquitos away and had been bitten serval times, he had scratches on his hands from spiky shrubs, and something was stinging on his right ankle. But he pressed on, seeking the river as a lifeline back to camp.

He had been going for more than half an hour when he heard a swift rustle in the scrub some yards before him. A fowl, with light brown and bluish black colouring, tripped over his path.

Ginger stopped for a short breather and looked after the bird. He was just about to proceed when the leaves moved again, and out in front of him stepped a black panther.

”Crikey,” gasped Ginger and thrust himself against a solid tree-trunk, staring at the beautiful but deadly animal.

The panther paused on its way, looking him over carefully with gleaming yellow eyes, tail flickering. Ginger hardly breathed, trying to look inconspicuous and blend in where he stood, dressed in a light kaki shirt and pants against a trunk with red and scaly bark.

After a few seconds the panther blinked slowly, turned and went on its way, more interested in a possible meal of fowl than anything Ginger might have to offer.

Ginger, heart thumping after the sudden encounter, let out a deep breath and almost fell down to a sitting position by the tree. He stayed there for several minutes, to calm down and let the beast get a good start on him if they should chance to be going in the same direction.

”Next time I’m going for a walk I’ll bring a rifle, and a map, a bottle of water, and a good walking-staff,” he promised himself as he walked on, sweating in the humid jungle heat and occasionally stumbling on the uneven ground.

”Or better still,” he muttered, as an afterthought, ”I’m staying put in camp.”

The pain in his leg was getting worse, and he had started to limp when he finally came across the river. With a deep sigh of relief, he went down to the flowing water.

After pouring a generous amount of water over himself, he sat down to examine his aching leg. He had thought that he had sprained an ankle, but closer examination showed a long rent in the trouser leg. Blood trickled down the ankle from a cut, and several leeches had found their way through the opening and were stuck to his skin. He had to spend some time pulling off the creatures, leaving small but sore wounds, before he was ready to push on.

Ginger felt pretty certain that he should go upstream to find the path back to the excavation, and went on with renewed energy now that he was certain to have the worst part behind him.

He must have kept his course remarkably well inside the forest, because it took him less than half an hour to get the wreck in sight. Happy thoughts about safety, company and something to eat and drink came upon Ginger, and he went on eagerly – only to stop in his tracks when he noticed a small group of people on the bank.

He swiftly dove for cover behind the closest tree, afraid that he was witnessing a party from the other side of the river preparing to attack the dig. From behind the tree he dared a quick look, and saw that the group was standing around a rubber dinghy, pointing in different directions and discussing hotly.

He looked wildly around, wondering how he could pass the group unnoticed to reach the dig and warn Biggles. The thought of once again walking straight into unchartered jungle did not appeal to him, but he could see no other course of action than to try to pick up the path away from the river.

Ginger took a cautious peek, and it occurred to him that he could spot no weapons in the gang. A bit puzzled, he eased himself forward for a better look, and presently realised that there was something quite familiar over the group. A ray of sun lit up a pair of spectacles on the longest man, and there were two small and slim people in chequered shirts.

”By gosh, it’s the students,” he declared to himself, with a sigh of relief. ”What the dickens can they be up to?”

He went out from behind the tree and continued to walk slowly up the river; as soon as he judged himself to be in hearing distance he hailed the students. They looked up from their discussion and returned his greeting, apparently pleased to see him.

”Have you been for a stroll in the forest?” enquired David.

Ginger sat down on the tree-roots where the airmen had stopped for a rest the day before.

”Something like that,” he said cautiously. ”What are you up to, then?”

”Aminâh remembered that we had brought an inflatable dinghy, so we thought we could make a rekko on the other side of the river,” replied Kenneth.

”I think it’s supposed to be ’make a recce’” put in Helen. ”That’s what my brother always said when he was home on leave, anyway.”

”Really? My old man says ‘take a dekko’ when he wants to dazzle us with his military expertise. From the Home guard, mind you. It probably dates from the Boer War,” said Huw.

”Never mind,” declared David and turned to Ginger. ”We thought like this: If this whoever spotted your aeroplane, and went to the river and started shooting in less than two hours, he can’t be far away. If we cross the river we might be able to pick up a trail. Good thing you came by, though, because we realised we don’t know where to start looking. Where did you park your plane? Upstream or downstream?”

Ginger stared aghast at the students.

”You were going to cross the river?” he eventually managed to get out.

”Yes.”

”To look for tracks after these gunmen?”

”Yes.”

”But – what makes you think you will find anything? In the jungle?” queried Ginger in a harassed voice.

”No harm in trying. It’s a bit on the late side to go today, mind you, we were just going to test the dinghy.”

”But – they’re bound to be dangerous, you know.”

”I should say we need to get to grips with them, sooner or later, if we want to get out of here in one piece. Besides, we don’t intend to attack them, we just want to know where they are.”

Ginger looked from one young face to another, desperately searching for arguments to persuade the students to come back with him to the dig; the prospect of admitting to Biggles that he had let them slip over the river was too daunting to consider.

He finally decided to try to appeal to their common sense; if upper-class students by any chance had any, he brooded.

”You know, you have the right idea, you really do, but it’s far too risky for you to go out looking for armed men. I couldn’t possibly tell you where to look, my chief would explode. Not to mention what your parents would have to say if you got yourselves hurt on a wild expedition like this. My colleagues and I are payed to be shot at, you’d better leave it to us.”

The students considered for a while.

”He does have a point,” observed Helen. ”I had a hard enough time persuading my parents to let me go here, I don’t want to give them a heart failure by chasing guerrillas or whatnots. Now that we’ve got Scotland Yard on the case we might as well let them do their job.”

”He certainly does have a point,” conceded David evenly, ”but we’re not necessarily safe even if we stay on the dig. Whoever is out there has certainly proved they don’t welcome visitors, and they might come after us anytime.”

”No telling if you friend in the plane got away, is there,” pointed out Kenneth. ”We can’t depend on help from the outside.”

”That doesn’t matter one way or the other; he returned to an airbase yesterday so he must already have told someone where we are,” interjected Aminâh.

Ginger, who thought that it did indeed matter one way or the other, still decided not to persue the subject. He was starting to relax, getting the feeling that the students were going to come back with him but that they enjoyed an argument too much to give it up right away.

He turned out to be right, when David some minutes later stated:

”Right, let’s pull up the dinghy as far as we can. Who can spot a creeper that’s strong enough to tie it up?”

\-- -- -- 

Back at the dig, the five remaining Europeans sat down for an early weekend dinner. To Bertie’s surprise, Professor Hayward and the others were quite unperturbed by the shortage of students.

”They’ve behaved so far and worked in the trench every day, but you can’t expect a group of youngsters to be still for ever,” said Doctor Saint-Simon philosophically. ”I certainly wasn’t so well-behaved on my first dig as a student. They’re probably off fishing, or something.”

”I organised a strike for free Saturdays, and two afternoons to go to the local pub,” admitted the Professor with a wistful smile.

”Did it work?”

”One step towards the pub and I could continue the trip to the train station, said the excavation leader, and that was that with my career as a revolutionary. Professor Klein didn’t stand any nonsense from his students.”

”I did pretty much the same thing with Professor Harding, at a dig in Cornwall; best idea he’d heard all year, he said,” offered Doctor Barton. ”After the first pint, we all agreed we had the best dig of the century going; after a few more, we realised we hadn’t found anything worth while. We even dismissed a beautiful Roman coin as a fake for tourists. We all had the worst hangover of our lives, and never set foot in that pub again.”

”A tropical jungle is somewhat more precarious than the pub around the corner,” put in Biggles sharply. ”There are a lot of dangerous animals out there, not to mention armed men.”

”Let’s hope they’ve got enough sense to stay together and don’t wander off straight into the jungle,” said Doctor Saint-Simon calmly. ”Aminâh at least knows a tiger when she sees one. Where did your young colleague go, by the way?”

Biggles made a wry face.

”If I know him, he did wander off straight into the jungle.”

”He probably spotted some alluring parrot,” added Bertie. ”The lad tends to be curious about the local flora and fauna.”

They were halfway through the meal when the little group of refugees returned to camp and immediately went over to the tables; the students chatting happily, Ginger following with a slight limp.

Biggles considered him with disfavour.

”What have you been up to?”

”I’ll tell you all about it,” promised Ginger, as he sunk down at the bench, ”but first I need a drink and something to eat – and don’t take your eyes of those students. They’re a menace on two feet.”

”I know someone else who fits that description,” muttered Biggles.

He didn’t have to wait long to get a general idea of what was going on. The students willingly parted with the information that they had fixed up a dinghy and been prepared to cross the river and look for the enemy camp. This bold spirit of campaigning was enough to make even the Professor alarmed, his own adventures as a novice digger pale in comparison.

”You – are – not – going – over,” he gasped.

”No, by Jove,” agreed Bertie fervently. ”I thought you chaps got all the excitement you wanted in your trench. You might even find a bead tomorrow, what?”

The students made faces and grumbled about ”the thanks you get”; probably mostly for the sake of putting up an argument, since they didn’t object with real conviction. 

They did, however, take it as a foregone conclusion that the Air Police was going to take over their project.

”You will need someone who can track in the forest,” said Aminâh calmly. ”I would propose Saleh, he was born in the jungle. And Ah Yang, who fought with the Chinese guerrilla. He worked at my father’s palace before that, and he didn’t join the guerrilla for political reasons, I’m certain of that. He returned to the Palace as soon as the Japs surrendered. Both of them speak good English, too.”

”They are two of the men who came with us to the river today. Saleh is also a jolly good shot,” explained the Professor to Biggles. ”And Doctor Saint-Simon was in Malaya during the war, if it comes to that.”

”Mostly retreating,” observed the Doctor, morosely.

Biggles considered for a while, smoking and looking out over the treetops.

”All right, we’ll take a party and take a dekko tomorrow,” he decided. ”We’ve done our share of jungle expeditions, but we’re certainly no experts on tracking or jungle warfare, so I think we’d better take you up on the offer. I would like one dependable man to leave with the dinghy, too. But we’re not going over to start something, I need that to be understood. With at least two Spitfires at their disposition, this is likely to be a bigger operation than we can take on at the moment.”

”How about Algy; what if he comes back tomorrow?” put in Ginger.

Biggles shrugged.

”It might take him a day to cut all the red tape and get reinforcements. If he does come, with another message, the Professor will have to read it and act accordingly.”

The planning for next day’s operation continued after dinner, and the men who were participating were ordered to be ready to march as soon as it was light enough to move in the jungle.

”Don’t forget we need some decent provisions, old boy,” put in Bertie. ”You know how much you hate it when we start moaning about food, and we can’t always depend on finding a coconut when we want one.”


	9. Chapter Seven

Biggles was on his feet when the first, greyish light spread over the sky. His colleagues, sleeping lightly in anticipation of the trip, woke instantly and quickly prepared for their early start.  
  
It soon became apparent, however, that everything would not go according to plan. Ginger had no more stood up than he shrunk down with a gasp of pain.  
  
Biggles looked up sharply.  
  
”What is it?”  
  
Ginger made another effort to stand up, with the help of Bertie.  
  
”I cut myself in the jungle yesterday, and the leg has got stiff over night. But it will ease up once I get mobile,” he explained and prepared to go over to the table area for a quick breakfast.  
  
Long before they reached the clearing it was obvious that Ginger would not be able to walk unsupported, let alone traverse virgin jungle. Only with the help of Bertie did he manage to jump over to the tables, where a small party of amateur medical doctors instantly gathered around to inspect his leg.  
  
”Those leech-bites can be a nuisance,” observed Doctor Saint-Simon. ”I know men who were disabled for weeks with infected sores during the occupation. You should have cleaned them better yesterday.”  
  
”But they’re tiny,” protested Ginger, ”they looked hardly more than bruises.”  
  
”It’s not so much the leeches, it’s the environment. Easy to catch stuff in this hot, humid climate,” added the Professor. ”You should have told us about the cut yesterday.”  
  
The general opinion was, however, that Ginger was going to come out of his encounter with his leg intact. He got several pieces of good advice about how to take care of himself, and iodine to clean the sores was collected from the medicine chest.  
  
The Chinese cook declared that he had just the thing for leech-bites, and fetched a traditional medicine called kow-yok, a tar-like substance used to seal wounds. Ginger eyed it suspiciously but, since Doctor Saint-Simon proclaimed that Westerners had used it during the occupation, agreed to try it.  
  
But treatment notwithstanding, there could be no question of him accompanying Biggles on the tour across the river.  
  
”Imagine; surviving an encounter with a panther, and being incapacitated by a leech,” muttered Ginger in disappointed tones.  
  
”There is this about it: you will be here if Algy comes along. That’s a load of my mind, actually,” stated Biggles.  
  
”I thought you didn’t expect him today, old warrior?”  
  
”Yes, but you know Algy – he will be in a flap over having to leave us here. He might be able to get his hands on a plane directly. I feel better with one of us here, where he knows how to find us.”  
  
”One aircraft won’t do us much good, will it? I don’t know of any machine that can take care of those bally Spitfires, and land to pick us up.”  
  
”He will think of something,” said Biggles shortly. ”Let’s get weaving, we don’t want to lose any more daylight.”  
  
”Take care,” murmured Ginger when the small party started for the river.

 

* * *

 

The dinghy was still where the students had left it, and the six men squeezed in and divided the four paddles amongst them to start up the river. They took turns to paddle, for even the gentle stream was enough to make it a taxing trip, while the two men resting were in charge of keeping their rifles dry.  
  
Reaching the strait where the Gosling had been anchored, they landed at the eastern bank. After some consideration, Biggles decided to leave the dinghy there, in case they needed to make a quick getaway, instead of asking the Malay who was standing guard to paddle it over to the other side.  
  
Bertie removed his eyeglass and gave it a good polish.  
  
”I wish the Air Commodore could send us to a more temperate climate, once in a while,” he complained. ”All this steaming jungle heat, rafting and climbing through swamps makes it jolly hard to keep my sight tip-top.”  
  
Doctor Saint-Simon looked a bit puzzled, never having encountered a jungle-campaigner with a monocle before, but smiled politely. Meanwhile, Biggles told Saleh and Ah Yang, who were going to try find where the shots had been fired from, the exact position of the aircraft. After a short discussion about the probable shooting distance, they went up a few yards from the river, where it seemed reasonable that the gunmen could have hidden from plain view, and started their search.  
  
Biggles sat down with the others and lit a cigarette. The smoke blended with the smell of brackish water and rotting vegetation that hung over the riverside.  
  
”Jolly nice spot for a picnic, and all that, if it weren’t for the stink and these beastly mosquitos,” murmured Bertie, looking out over the river and sweeping aimlessly around himself to establish a parameter of defence.  
  
The Doctor, wearing a pith helmet with a mosquito net thrown over it, and gloves to protect his hands, made sounds of agreement.  
  
”That’s one thing I’ve learned out here; the more cover the better. I can’t stand being bitten all the time.”  
  
”Were you in Malaya for a long time?” queried Bertie.  
  
”Far too long, that’s what I thought at the time, but actually I was lucky enough to get away early. I was with the Royal Engineers, blowing up bridges to try and stop the Japs. Didn’t do us much good, as you know,” answered the Doctor.  
  
His somewhat clipped tone hinted that he was not eager to dwell on the subject, and the little group fell silent.  
  
The sound of flowing water mixed with the rustle of foliage in the wind and the high-pitched noise of cicada song and the odd bird chirping. Occasionally they could hear the two men walking further up the river bank or pushing branches out of the way for a better look.  
  
After less than an hour, Saleh came back, handing Doctor Saint-Simon a handful of empty cartridges.  
  
”Sloppy men,” he stated. ”We believe we have picked up their trail too; it’s faint, not a regular path.”  
  
”Jolly good,” said Bertie enthusiastically. ”Finally we have a chance to get to know what the fuss is all about, what?”  
  
”Good work, Saleh,” affirmed Biggles. ”I think you had better collect Ah Yang, we’ll have something to eat before we press on. I know it’s not long since breakfast, but it might be difficult to eat later on. We don’t want to take the risk of being overheard.”

 

* * *

 

Aminâh paused in her work and peeped up from the trench in the direction of the tables. Ginger was still sitting there, his chin resting in one hand, staring out over the jungle.  
  
”Poor chap; he looks pretty miserable, doesn’t he?”  
  
David looked up from his drawing board.  
  
”He would, wouldn’t he? A lame leg, his friends gone, he’s bound to worry.”  
  
”Why don’t you go and bring him here? He looks like he could use some company.”  
  
”Possibly, but what makes you think he’d want ours? From what I’ve seen, he prefers up in the air to down in the ground,” said Kenneth.  
  
Aminâh shrugged.  
  
”He can but decline, can’t he? If I were in his shoes, I’d welcome the company of most anyone to brooding all by myself. Might do us a spot of good, too, talking about something else than sherds and bones.”  
  
”Fair enough,” conceded Helen. ”Go get him, David. I’ll fetch a blanket for him to sit on, I know there is one laying about with our stores in the cave.”  
  
David rolled his eyes.  
  
”If you’re so keen on his company, girls, why don’t you get him yourself?”  
  
”He’ll probably be too shy to come with us; you know what boys are like. And besides, he’ll need help to jump over here,” stated Aminâh.  
  
”All right, all right,” grumbled David, put his drawing board down and strolled over the clearing.  
  
Helen jumped out of the trench and disappeared around the bend for a few minutes, coming back with a blanket, a water-bottle and a cup. She could see David sitting down, talking to Ginger.  
  
”What’s happening over there?” asked Kenneth from his crouched position at the bottom of one of the trenches.  
  
”They’re talking,” reported Helen, put the stuff down by the steep wall inside the rock-shelter, and went into the trench to pick up her trowel.  
  
A while later the sound of uneven steps told them that David had accomplished his mission, and they all looked up to say hello.  
  
”You can sit over there, on the folded blanket,” suggested Helen, ”plain ground would be uncomfortable after a while.”  
  
Ginger thanked her and sat down at the far end of the trench. He had expected it to be cooler inside the rock-shelter, but the heat reached all the way in under the natural roof. Dust was whirling in the air from the digging and brushing down in the trenches, but at least the distance to the jungle meant slightly fewer mosquitos.  
  
He contemplated the toiling youngsters curiously.  
  
”Isn’t it – er – rather uncomfortable working in a trench like that?”  
  
”You get used to it,” returned Kenneth cheerfully. ”You just shift your position around a lot; sit on your knees, squat, rest on the hip, stand up and bend over... At least we don’t have to get stiff in one position only.”

 ”Have you been around here before, then, Mister Hepple...” asked Huw.  
  
”It’s Hebblethwaite, but better stick to Ginger. And yes, I’ve been around Malaya, during the war; but not exactly here, of course,” said Ginger slowly.  
  
South-east Asia was not exactly a place brimming with happy memories. He thought of a krait in the cockpit of a Beaufighter, a stint in a Japanese prison camp, and the raid at Victoria Point where they had saved Algy from decapitation with seconds to spare, and stared more gloomily than ever over the clearing.  
  
Aminâh made an angry face at Huw, clearly conveying what she thought about his talent for small talk.  
  
”Sorry,” muttered Huw awkwardly.  
  
Ginger came back to reality and gave him a wan smile.  
  
”No, it’s all right; we were all somewhere during the war, weren’t we? Anything new down in your trench?”  
  
”We’ve started to unearth an adze and some pottery here,” said Kenneth, who was working in the second trench. ”It might be another burial, but no signs of bones yet.”  
  
”What do you make of it, so far?” asked Helen, looking up from where she was picking away earth around a cracked-up pot in the first trench.  
  
”It’s definitely Neolithic, the stone is really smooth.”  
  
Aminâh, who was busy around the skeleton, looked up at Ginger and explained.  
  
”If it was Hoabinhian it would be much rougher, they simply chipped the stone on one side to make an edge on their tools.  
  
”That would be Middle Stone Age,” added Helen. ”Hoabinhian, that is.”  
  
”So, people lived here around the hill, did they?”  
  
”In Mesolithic time, yes, but Neolithic man probably built houses. A lot of adzes and chisels have been found, so it seems they were carpenters. Of course, all traces of wood and bamboo will disappear in the jungle, and we can’t find it. But they did made use of caves and rock-shelters too. Lucky for us, or we wouldn’t know anything about them.”  
  
”Lucky indeed,” murmured Ginger with a sigh.

* * *

The progress of the little reconnaissance party was slow and deliberate. Saleh and Ah Yang went on ahead, tracking. Only when they were certain that they could follow the trail for another ten yards did they signal to the rest of the party to advance.  
  
Not knowing how close they were to the enemy camp, they kept their voices down when they needed to exchange some words; this was not the time for idle chatter, Biggles had cautioned before they left the river bank.  
  
Doctor Saint-Simon had done wisely, covering his hands with gloves, Biggles reflected. They continually had to push fern-trees, bushes and thick branches out of their way. His and Bertie’s hands were already the worse for wear.  
  
Bertie, during one of their many pauses on the way, whispered a query about the Spitfires, whose base could not be as close as all that.  
  
”We should have heard them take off and land, if they’ve got a private aerodrome closish, if you see what I mean?”  
  
”No doubt they’ve got radio connection with an airstrip further away. Which means, what they’re really interested in is right here.”  
  
At that moment, Ah Yang looked out between two fern-tree, and beckoned to them; the signal to move another few yards.  
  
The sticky heat lay heavy over the little party, and contributed to their discomfort. The ground was uneven and boggy, and several times one of them got a foot stuck in the mud, and had to pull it free, the mud reluctantly letting go with a sucking sound. But Bertie was grateful that the trees provided shadow from the scorching sun, or the trek would had been even worse. At least they had the comfort of each others company, unlike Ginger on his excursion the day before.  
  
They pressed on, making exasperatingly slow progress. Biggles glanced at his watch; they had already spent almost three hours on the trail. Since someone who knew their way would move considerably faster, they might still have a long walk ahead of them; indeed, they could not be certain they would reach their objective this day. In which case, they would have to return to the dig and pick up the trail the following day.  
  
Biggles mechanically glanced up towards the sky, of which he only saw the occasional patch of blue or cloudy white through the dense foliage. He would prefer to stay at the dig the following day; surely Algy would return by then.

 

* * *

 

At the excavation site, lunch hour had passed, and the digging continued. Ginger was again seated inside the rock-shelter, only half listening when the students discussed their progress. He regularly glanced at his watch, stared out over the tree-tops and searched the fringe of the jungle.  
  
He was abruptly called back to reality when he realised that someone had said his name.  
  
”Sorry, what was that?”  
  
”I said, is you friend a very good pilot or were those two fighter pilots just lousy shots? I would have thought he was a sitting duck,” observed Kenneth.  
  
Ginger smiled, despite himself.  
  
”A little of both, I suppose. I imagine the Spitfire pilots haven’t had much training lately, but a plane is actually a more difficult target than you might think. Since it’s moving you need to fire in front of it, and your guns will be set so the bullets converge at a specific point; outside that it’s hard to make much damage.”  
  
”But Algy’s good, no doubt about that,” he added, gloomily.  
  
Helen and Aminâh exchanged a look.  
  
”Right, who else needs a break and some fruit and biscuits?” said Aminâh and threw her brush away. ”Kenneth, come and help me carry, will you?”  
  
The young man looked up, somewhat surprised, since such a break was not normally on the itinerary. However, when Aminâh used that tone of voice, everyone knew that the quickest way to put an end to the misery was to follow the path of least resistance.  
  
The students had no sooner got out of earshot when Aminâh hissed to her companion.  
  
”What is it with you guys? We’re supposed to cheer him up, and you just keep reminding him of his worries.”  
  
Kenneth glared back.  
  
”At least we’re trying to talk about something he’s interested in. He couldn’t care less about the difference between Hoabinhian and Neolithic. I can’t help it if he starts moaning about the war, or whatever, as soon as someone mentions an aeroplane.”  
  
Aminâh rolled her eyes.  
  
”Mention an aeroplane! I ask you, do you call reminding him that a friend might have crashed over the next hilltop ’mentioning an aeroplane’?”  
  
”All right, don’t rub it in, will you? You come up with a topic next time and I promise the word aeroplane won’t get into my mouth.”  
  
The unfortunate cause of dissension among the students leaned back against the wall of rock, feeling decidedly uncomfortable. They had good intentions, no doubt, but he rather wished he had stayed in the solitude of the table.  
  
He also very much wished that he knew what Biggles and Bertie were up to.


	10. Chapter Eight

Biggles felt a surge of excitement when Ah Yang, instead of beckoning them to follow, came back to meet them. Bertie and Doctor Saint-Simon came up close by him to hear what was going on.

”Saleh thinks we are close now,” the Chinese explained softly. ”We wait here. He will come back and fetch us, if it is safe.”

”I say,” murmured Bertie. ”Not a minute too soon. I’m all agog to find out what’s so important in this perishing jungle.”

When Saleh turned up, he was moving so silently that he almost was in front of them before they noticed. They stood up, expectantly, to listen to what the Malay had to tell.

”We are close, but it should be safe. That way, perhaps fifteen minutes walk from here, we will get to a good lookout point,” he told them in a low voice, pointing in a southeastern direction. ”We will look out over a stream, and on the other side there is a clearing, fenced in. Many men are working, and many guards with guns.”

”Working?” said Biggles. ”Could you see with what?”

”Mining,” returned the Malay laconically.

”Mining? For what?” exclaimed Bertie, dropping his monocle in his agitation.

Biggles frowned disapprovingly.

”Keep your voice down.”

”Tin is of course the most common metal to be mined here, but there is a fair amount of gold, too,” stated Doctor Saint-Simon in a soft voice. ”It would be quite a project to put up a secret mining operation, but I suppose it could be done, out in this wilderness.

”Right, let’s get cracking. I want to see this mining operation. And do put that piece of glass away, Bertie,” said Biggles irritably. ”You know it might gleam in the sun, and we don’t want to be spotted.”

Once they started walking again, they almost immediately picked up sounds of human activity; a generator running, metal tools working rock, hammering. The sounds grew louder as they progressed, and by the time Saleh made a gesture that they had arrived, they had already formed a fair opinion about what was going on. They crouched low and carefully took the last steps through the greenery.

They were up on a mound overlooking a stream, slightly narrower than the one they had crossed in the morning. Opposite them rose a steep limestone hill, not unlike the one that kept the archaeologists busy. On the far side of the stream, a simple landing stage run out a short distance into the water, and a barge lay at its side. A small boat was dragged up on the bank on their side of the river.

In front of the hill, a large area was cleared and surrounded by several rows of barbed wire. Inside stood a group of huts, and a generator was driving a stone crusher.

Around the limestone hill, poorly dressed men, most of them wearing wide rattan hats for protection against the sun, were busy digging with picks and shovels. Others carried loads to and from the stone crush. Several men stood guard, armed with rifles and handguns in military-style holsters. Two large dogs, of the Alsatian type, patrolled together with their masters.

A wooden structure held a small flow of water, evidently used to separate the ore. Close to the landing stage part of the river bank had ben dug out to form a kind of basin, where people were standing knee-high in water, panning gravel for ore.

Bertie looked closely at the people working in the water, who were dressed in long-sleeved shirts and wide hats.

”By Jove, I believe it’s women,” he exclaimed, temporarily forgetting the urge for silence.

His observation was rewarded with a reproaching look from Biggles, while Professor Saint-Simon calmly observed, in a whisper:

”Quite probable. Dulang washing is traditionally a female occupation.”

Biggles surveyed the area thoroughly, taking in every detail of the layout, fence, and number of workers and guards. When he thought there was nothing more to be learned, he made signs for the others to follow him back down the rise. He walked on for several minutes, to get out of earshot of the mine, before he stopped and lit a cigarette.

”We’d better be careful, going back. The rowing boat on this side of the stream means someone is over here, and we don’t want to bump into them. If they think we know anything, I’m afraid they could decide to take action against our camp. We might be able to go into hiding into the jungle, but we certainly can’t engage them with a few firearms and a bunch of students,” said Biggles crisply.

”I say, old chap,” said Bertie, permitting himself the luxury of once more screwing the monocle in his eye, ”it would seem to be some kind of labour camp. What are we going to do about it?”

”What can we do, at the moment? They’ve got a well-equipped force; just getting into the camp unnoticed would be quite a business, with a river to cross, that fence and guard-dogs.”

”It goes against the grain to just leave it be, old chap,” protested Bertie. ”If we cut down the fence and shoot a bit over the heads of these scoundrels, perhaps those poor blighters could get away.”

”Do make sense, Bertie, just for once,” bit of Biggles. ”But if you would like to take them on, don’t let me stop you. I’ll say something nice at your funeral service.”

”I say, that’s a bit steep, isn’t it?”

”We didn’t even bring a wire-cutter, remember? I’m afraid this is one occasion where we can’t resolve the situation on the spot. As soon as Algy is back, we will make certain the Malayan military gets the gen, and this mining camp will soon be history.”

”This would be something for old Gimlet to put his teeth in,” averred Bertie. ”He and his gang would soon mop this up. A few rounds of explosives and the foxes would be without a hole, if you see what you mean.”

”Let me know when you find a telephone box, and we’ll call and ask Gimlet to give you a hand. Until then, get mobile.”

Saleh went on ahead, making certain they did not walk in their own foot-tracks to avoid making a path that would give away that they had been spying on the mining camp. Since they knew in what direction to walk, they made much faster progress back towards the river.

”But look here, this operation must cost a pretty penny, what with holding a private air force and all that. Could it really be worth their while?” queried Bertie.

”I’m really not one to remember figures, but I can tell you a good tin find is worth millions. And a gold find would of course give even more. If they don’t bother to pay wages to the workers, they can certainly make a decent profit,” replied Doctor Saint-Simon.

”I wouldn’t use the word ’decent’ in this context,” muttered Biggles.

Further discussion was halted when Saleh came hurrying back, making gestures for them to get in behind a thick screen of fern-trees.

”Two men are coming,” he said hastily. ”Hide.”

The five of them scrambled into the undergrowth, trying their best to move silently.

Some minutes later, the sound of footstep told them that the two men were getting close. Biggles carefully parted some branches to try to get a glimpse of them, who walked past only ten feet away. Both were armed with rifles, wearing bandoliers with spare ammunition. One of them carried a few fowls and the other had a sack, filled with something heavy, thrown over his shoulder.

Biggles and the others waited for a considerable time, long after the sounds of the mens walking had waned, before they came out from behind the fern-tree and continued their walk towards the river.

”Do you think they were the ones who shot at our machine?” said Bertie, polishing his monocle.

”They might have been, but a lot of the guards were armed with rifles. These two had been on a hunting trip, by the look of it. Good thing Saleh spotted them in advance. Either they would have seen us and been able to report about us, or we would have been forced to try and capture them, in which case they would have been missed. We don’t want to attract any attention; these people are dangerous. I should guess the messenger in the canoe was unlucky enough to meet with one of their boats, and they bumped him off on the odd chance that their presence would raise suspicions.”

”Not bally cricket, no by Jove,” muttered Bertie, screwing his monocle in his eye.  
\-- -- --

The clock had passed four in the afternoon, and Ginger felt quite strongly that he had heard all that he ever wanted about adzes, strata, vertebrae and Hoad-whatever. Common dirt was a lot more pleasant when seen from a height of at least one thousand feet, than when you were sitting on it, with particles dancing in the air all around you.

He shifted his position, moving some feet away from the trench to be able to rest his back against the wall and, hopefully, avoid some of the dust. He looked glumly over the clearing, for a moment considering what it could have been like, living here thousands of years ago with only rough tools of stone and bamboo.

Suddenly he heard a faint sound from behind, like pebbles moving, and looked curiously about. He jerked violently when something cream-coloured glided out between a few small rocks, passed only inches away from his right foot, and headed towards the trench.

”Look out, a snake!” he yelled.

The students jumped up from their crouching positions with a speed that stirred up even more dust, looking wildly around. But Aminâh didn’t waste a second glance at the light, slithering creature, who was following the edge of the trench.

”So? It’s only a racer,” she said, returning to uncovering the skull of a skeleton.

”If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s snakes,” muttered Ginger, vehemently, and moved away from the rock-wall.

”As long as you’re not a rat or a bat – and correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that you are – there’s nothing to worry about,” declared Aminâh.

”I thought the Professor said they were nocturnal,” put in David and looked after the snake, which was sliding in under a small collection of boulders some yards away from the trench. ”He was quite firm about it; no risk whatsoever of trampling on an adder, he said.”

”And I thought you said they lived inside the caves,” added Helen, suspiciously.

”The racer isn’t an adder, you idiot,” said Aminâh impatiently. ”It’s not poisonous. The poor creature has probably been scared out of its home by the digging inside, and it’s just realised there’s no peace and quiet here in the rock-shelter either, with us about.”

Right on cue to confirm that the limestone hill had been transformed into a busy workplace, Professor Hayward and Doctor Barton came out from their trench in the cave and went over to inspect what the students had found during the day.

”We’ll stop digging for now,” the Professor decided. ”We’ll get some work done by the tables before we eat.”

The students broke up and moved over to the table area, where they got busy washing the few shards of pottery that had been removed from the ground during the day, cleaning tools and working on notes and drawings.

Ginger, who by now could walk on his own if a bit on the slow side, accompanied them. He sat down, keeping his eyes on the jungle edge where he anxiously waited for Biggles and the others to turn up. His reveries were only temporarily broken when the students claimed his attention to admire some of their finds.

”Isn’t it beautiful,” said Helen happily, holding up a shard, about the size of her hand, for inspection.

It was a dark, reddish brown with a tint of mauve, and judging by the curve it had probably once been part of a fairly shallow bowl. The outside was smooth, with one lonely string of cord-marking for adornment.

Ginger eyed it dubiously, failing to see its appeal, but the other students made sounds of assent.

”Whoever decorated that certainly didn’t suffer from horror vacui,” said Kenneth.

”Quite different from the ones we found last week,” agreed David. ”Those were all covered in decoration. Certainly another artist at work here.”

”Do you think you’ll find all the parts, so we can piece the whole bowl together?” asked Huw.

”I hope so; and it’s not impossible, by the look of it,” said Helen. ”I’ve already got at least five pieces that seem to fit together, and there are more still down there.”

Ginger once more cast a worried glance over the clearing and checked his watch. Biggles and the other had been away for about nine hours, and there weren’t many hours of daylight left. They must be well on their way back by now, unless something had happened to them.

He found it strange that none of the others seemed to be in the least anxious; after all, having members of their party go out looking for probable murderers couldn’t very well be standard procedure at an archaeological dig. Perhaps they simply couldn’t take the danger seriously, he mused.

For almost as long as he could remember, he had had to become accustomed to the threat of losing close friends to violence or accidents. But these kids, once the war was over, were probably used to a reality where nothing more exciting than a snake in the trench could upset the day.

Ginger had no further time to ponder his hypothesis, since the sound of men moving in the jungle reached the clearing. Soon the reconnaissance party stepped out from the forest. He smiled, relieved, and waved a welcome to Biggles and the others.

”Behold, the return of our bold explorers,” declared David brightly.

”Good, I hope they’ve found out something. I’m dying to find out what’s going on,” asserted Aminâh, looking up from furiously scribbling in a note-book.

”You know, ’dying’ might be a poor choice of words here,” put in Kenneth, on a sarcastic note, and got a grimace in return.

”All right, let’s clear the table”, said Professor Hayward, coming up to the students.

”I believe dinner is about ready, and they must be weary after a day on the trail.”

The students happily complied, and by the time Biggles and the others had crossed the clearing, at a sluggish pace, the tables were cleared of archaeological finds and food utensils on their way.

The party sunk down on the benches.

”Good to see you,” said Ginger. ”Did you find something?”

”Too true we did,” confirmed Bertie, wearily. ”But if I don’t ever have to walk in a jungle again, it won’t be too soon for me.”

”Amen to that,” stated Doctor Saint-Simon, and started to untie his boots.

Biggles took up his cigarette-case and lit a cigarette, without bothering to tap it on the back of his hand.

”Next time, I’ll stay with the machine. Algy can do the legwork, for a change,” he muttered.

”Well, what did you find?” inquired Ginger, impatiently.

Biggles took a deep draw on his cigarette before answering.

”We found a mining operation,” he announced slowly. ”If they’re mining for tin or even gold, we don’t know, but it’s a large operation; with forced labour, as far as we could make out.”

He continued to describe what they had seen during the trip to a captivated audience. 

When the issue had been thoroughly discussed, Biggles tossed the stub of his cigarette away and declared:

”I don’t know about you, but I’m tired and intend to go straight to bed. Algy is likely to return quite early, and we need to be prepared to act.”


	11. Chapter Nine

The stars were still dying in the sky when Biggles woke up the following morning, impatient to get in contact with Algy and to get something done about the clandestine mining operation. He left the tent silently, trying not to disturb the others, and climbed up a bit on the hillside where he sat down to smoke and watch the sun rise with the pinkish tint of the tropics.

As daylight fell over the camp and with that the increasing volume of jungle sounds, the rest of the inhabitants came out of their tents and made their way to the tables, where some of the workers had prepared breakfast. Bertie and Ginger were among the last to come out of the tents, not seeing any reason to hurry since they knew that Algy would not arrive for several hours.

Biggles climbed down to meet them, glancing pointedly at his watch but not saying anything except a short ”good morning”. Bertie and Ginger exchanged a glance where amusement mingled with indulgence.

”I say, how about some sightseeing on the way home?” suggested Bertie when they sat down for breakfast. ”England is bound to be cold and rainy, and there are lots of nice, warm places where the bananas grows on the way home from here. Burma, for one. I’ve heard there is some spectacular temple or other in Rangoon. You’ve never been there either, have you, old boy?” he asked, turning to Biggles.

”Actually, Algy and I stopped in Rangoon once,” said Biggles in a tone of voice that indicated that his memories of the place were not too fond. ”A long time ago; before we stumbled upon Ginger.”

Ginger looked up curiously, on the verge of asking Biggles to tell the story, but after a look at his chief’s face he promptly decided to wait until a more opportune moment. A relaxed evening at Mount Street, with all four of them sitting in front of the fireplace, would be ideal, he mused.

As usual, the archaeologists disappeared down into their trenches straight after breakfast, leaving the airmen to discuss the mining operation, and how the army best could take care of it, once they had arrived.

About nine o’clock, Biggles left the table and started to pace around the clearing, with his eyes up in the sky. This did not escape the attention of the students.

”I take it Bigglesworth is counting the seconds to the show-down. So, how do you think this Algernon chap is going to take care of the Spitfire problem?” said David cheerfully to his friends.

”Bet you a beer in the first pub we visit that he’s called in the navy, to avoid any more trouble in the air,” proposed Kenneth.

”No, no,” protested Huw, ”boats aren’t secure in these waters either, remember? How about an elephant safari?”

”If that’s the case, we’ll still be waiting for him next month,” said Aminâh, rolling her eyes.

”Commandoes landing by parachute, that’s the ticket,” declared David.

”Yes? And how exactly is that going to take care of Spitfires?” retorted Huw. ”They will be in the air long before the plane with the commandoes has even found the right place. Might even shoot the poor bastards while they’re still floating down.”

Helen looked up from her work and followed Biggles with her eyes for a while.

”He’s really the nervous type, anyway. I hope his friend hurries back, or he’s likely to wear down a trail at least a foot deep.”

”Could be useful,” offered Kenneth. ”Who knows, he might unearth some new, exciting find. It’s just possible there are traces of postholes somewhere out there.”

”That would certainly earn him a place in the next edition of the textbook,” concluded Helen, and returned her attention to the reddish pottery shards.

When half past nine came, and still no sign of an approaching aircraft, Biggles was frowning, glaring impatiently on his watch. Ten o’clock found him looking worried, still wandering around the clearing.

Biggles was, by now, brooding on several problems. As long as Algy didn’t turn up and the mining people were taken care of, there was always the threat of the thugs turning their attention to the archaeologists’ camp. Having destroyed a boat, and opened fire at the Gosling, they knew there was a party of Europeans somewhere in the vicinity. There was no guarantee that they would be content to leave the dig in peace indefinitely.

There was also the question of the mining camp itself. Outwardly, Biggles was firm in his opinion that they formed too small a task-force to take on the mining operation. His primary responsibility was to keep the archaeological team safe, and he could not start a small war without endangering them. The reasonable thing for them to do was to avoid attracting any attention and to make contact with the Malayan authorities.

But reasonable or not, he could not stop thinking about the labour camp and kept pondering if there were a way to get through the fences and help the captives.

He was quite certain that they would be able to find a pair of wire-cutters in the camp, since the party had constructed simple furniture and had some equipment that might need repairing. But the fence was not the only thing stopping the workers from getting free, and the fire power Biggles had at his disposal was hardly enough to start a battle with a lot of armed guards. He kept pacing the dig, turning over in his mind what options could be available.

After lunch, when the archaeologists were on the way back to work, he stopped Professor Hayward.

”Excuse me, Professor, you didn’t by any chance bring some explosives with you?”

”Sorry; explosives?”

”Dynamite, that sort of thing?”

”Why on earth should we bring dynamite?”

”Yes, well, you are digging... You might find a rock blocking your way, or something.”

”You suggest we should blow our way down into the ground?”

”Well – no, it was just a thought...”

”And what do you suppose we should find in our trench, once we’ve blown it up? Pottery dust, perhaps?” said the Professor, indignantly.

He rolled his eyes and stamped off towards the trenches in the rock-shelter, where his colleagues were getting ready for work. Biggles could see him talking agitated to the other archaeologists, making gestures, and – finally – knocking himself on the temple.

”Well, that worked fine,” muttered Biggles with biting sarcasm, tapped the ash of his cigarette and continued to wander around the clearing.

Having established that he could not, at the moment, do anything about the mining camp, and not willing to dwell upon why Algy had failed to return, Biggles turned his attention back to the question of keeping guard, if someone from the other side intended to cross the water and look for the archaeologists’ camp.

To post guards down by the river would be a hazardous business. Even if he surmised that a raiding party would head for the sunken boat, which would be a logical place to go ashore, it was a fair distance from the river to the dig. A warning would probably reach the camp quite late, and furthermore, he didn’t like the idea of having his small party spread out with no means of communication.

He went up to the hill and looked up the precipitous side, considering what the view would be on top and the difficulties in getting up there. An observation post on top, so that the party could be warned early, would solve the problem, mused Biggles. He looked speculatively at the limestone hill.

After spending some time staring up at the hill, pondering if posting a lookout up on the hill would be feasible, Biggles finally decided against it. It would no doubt be possible to climb all the way, but he was equally certain that he wouldn’t be able to see down to the river.

Biggles grimaced and rubbed his by now stiff neck, lit a cigarette and continued to pace around the edge of the jungle.

Ginger sat down beside Bertie, who was aimlessly turning the pages of a book he had borrowed from one of the students.*

”Pretty interesting stuff, this,” greeted Bertie. ”It says here that ’In British North Borneo stone implements are regarded as powerful charms. The spurs of fighting cocks are rubbed with them in order to ensure their gaining the victory...’ How about that? People have the most queer ideas, what?”

Ginger, who had had his fill of ancient artefacts during a day beside the trenches, ignored the remark.

”Biggles is getting restless,” he remarked, with a nod towards their chief.

”I dare say he’s running out of cigarettes again,” replied Bertie lightly. ”We might need to have another go at finding something smokable in the vicinity.”

”I could have sworn Algy would have come today,” Ginger continued after a brief pause. ”One day to check out and repair the machine I can understand, but two?”

”Not to worry, old boy,” said Bertie, ”Algy will need some time to get his hands on an atomic bomb to mop up things around here.”

Ginger gave him a reproachful glance.

”Since that’s not going to happen, he could easily have got his hands on a Spitfire of his own and returned by now.”

”You don’t think he’ll be daft enough to return with just the one Spitfire, do you? He might have got away with it once, but next time they’ll know to expect a decent pilot.”

Ginger looked dubious.

”Yes... but this is Algy we’re talking about. He’ll be worried and wanting to get back to us.”

”So we are, and he’s not always a raving lunatic, you know. Got sense, when he needs to.”

Biggles, still restlessly walking back and forth in the shade of the jungle edge, could see Bertie and Ginger in earnest discussion at the table; Ginger with a worried frown, Bertie obviously trying to lighten up the atmosphere. He could guess what they were talking about, and why they did it when he was out of earshot. It was now well over three o’clock, and it was pretty certain that Algy wouldn’t turn up today either.

He stopped, sat down at a log and took up his cigarette case. Ten cigarettes in there, he noticed with a frown, and that was the last of the packages that Algy had dropped for him.

He really had been smoking too much.

* * *

Bertie and Ginger stayed at the table until late afternoon, when the cook had started preparing the evening meal.

”It’ll be time for supper soon. Let’s go find Biggles,” Ginger suggested and rose from the bench.

”Right-ho,” agreed Bertie. ”I believe he was last spotted in the direction of the small overhang, on the other side of the rock-shelter with all the skeletons. It will be famous in archaeological circles, so the chaps tell me.”

They found Biggles sitting in the shade of the hill, looking a bit worn out. Bertie eyed him with a worried frown.

”I say, old boy, you’re not getting the old fever back, are you? We didn’t bring any pills, you know,” he said, as concerned about Biggles’s health as with the prospect of being left in command.

”I’m fine,” said Biggles dismissively, and took up his cigarette case.

Bertie sat down, not altogether calmed. Ginger joined them, anxious to hear Biggles’ opinion on why Algy hadn’t turned up, and what they were going to do in the continued absence of their aircraft, but couldn’t muster up enough courage to bring up the subject. Seeing that Biggles’ cigarette case was less than half full, he racked his brain for another suitable topic of conversation.

”I’ve been doing some thinking, old chap,” put in Bertie, before Ginger had made up his mind about an acceptable subject.

”Sound ominous,” said Biggles, with gentle sarcasm, but Bertie payed no heed to him.

”It seems to me these mining-chappies made a blunder, burning the archaeologist’s boat. If our friends out here still had their radio, and had sent a message to Daddy Sultan from time to time, no-one would have come looking for them. And the mining operation could have gone on for a long time.”

Biggles tapped his cigarette mechanically on the case.

”You have something there,” he conceded, lighting his cigarette. ”They might even regret doing it by now – once they went down that road, it was too late to change direction. Since they have taken the trouble to get hold of Spitfires, they were certainly prepared to use violence from start. However, one or two aeroplanes disappearing over a jungle wouldn’t necessarily have attracted attention to this particular spot. But a lost archaeological expedition is bound to be noticed.”

”Only goes to show, there is such a thing as being so sharp you’ll cut yourself,” concluded Bertie, polishing his eyeglass.

\--  
* Ivor H. N. Evans: ”Papers on the Ethnology and Archaeology of the Malay Peninsula.” First published 1927.


	12. Chapter ten

Several hours after he had given the Spitfires the slip in the clouds, Algy could finally land the Gosling at the tarmac at RAF station Kuala Lumpur. A detour, to make sure that the fighters wouldn’t catch up with him, had made the flight longer than strictly necessary. He had also chosen to fly at considerably less than top speed; he could live with the draught in the cabin, but preferred to take no chances after the beating the machine had taken.

Luckily, the plane had continued to respond to his piloting, and even the hand crank for the landing wheels was still functional. The controls had obviously not been hit, and he hoped that he would be able to return and make another attempt to contact Biggles and the others in a day.

After long hours at the controls, Algy rose stiffly, stretched and went into the cabin. Before opening the rear entrance door, he looked around to check on damages. One side window was practically gone, and he could spot several bullet holes in the sides and the floor.

Algy grimaced; hits below the water line meant that he could not land on water until the holes had been patched up, and what he could see of the RAF station was not exactly encouraging. There were no hangars, only a few tents and some scattered wooden buildings. Neither had he spotted any aircraft that would be useful in picking up people in the middle of the jungle; there were only single-seat fighters and one bulky transport plane – with a very solid set of wheels – parked around the airfield.

He climbed out of the amphibian to continue to assess the damages. Slowly walking around the Gosling, a queer smile formed on Algy’s lips.

Apart from the smashed side window and assorted bullet holes that he already knew about, there were plenty of damages to keep the mechanics busy. The port wingtip and the port float were perforated with bullet holes, the starboard engine nacelle had been hit, and one of the horizontal stabilisers reminded him of nothing as much as a Swiss cheese.

He would have preferred not to leave Biggles and the others in the jungle with a bunch of lunatics on the prowl, but there was nothing for it; the machine would need some decent repair work before it was airworthy again.

Algy paused when he had walked a full turn around the plane and drew a hand through unruly, fair hair. Then he let out a short laugh, thrust his hands deep in his pockets, and declared:

”All right, that was the last time. You’re not having fun taking potshots at me one more time, I’ll tell you that.”

And with that, he turned on his heels and went towards the small congregation of tents and wooden buildings, in search of the C.O. of the station.

* * *

  
The dawn of a fourth day crept over the clearing deep in the Malayan jungle, and found the three policemen more glum than before. They had no plan of action for the day, and did not look forward to spending another day in anxious anticipation of the Gosling to return. The airmen munched their breakfast biscuits without enthusiasm, hardly uttering a word.

The students glanced pityingly at them and spoke with muted voices. No mentioning was made of aeroplanes of any sort, of war or of mining. Huw accidentally uttered the word ”digging” and was promptly chastised with withering looks from the other students.

After the archaeologists had started working, Biggles and the others again remained at the table, each staring in his own direction over the clearing. Biggles opened his cigarette case to check on his, by now, meagre supply of cigarettes. Scowling, he lit one of them.

”Are you going to ration them, old boy, or do you gamble that Algy’s coming today?” queried Bertie lightly, deciding to take the bull by the horn.

Biggles looked up, seemingly on the verge of making a cutting remark, but he stopped himself and gave Bertie a rueful smile.

”I don’t know, and that’s a fact.”

”Even if Algy’s having problems, that Sultan ought to be eager to get hold of his daughter,” remarked Ginger. ”I dare say someone should come along presently.”

”Yes? Was that supposed to be a piece of good advice about whether to smoke or not?”

Ginger turned the question over in his mind, trying to decide what would be worst: to have Biggles irritable with withdrawal symptoms for several days, or to have a day of respite before the cigarettes run out.

”He’ll come today,” he stated, confidently.

Bertie grinned.

”That’s the ticket, laddie; optimism always wins through,” he declared, and even Biggles couldn’t repress a smile. He put away his cigarette case and said:

”Where have you hidden that deck of cards, Bertie? I can’t stand another day of doing nothing. Time to give you youngsters a lesson.”

Bertie shook his head sadly.

”Old chap, if you can outplay me in three-handed bridge, I’ll do all the dawn patrols for a month,” he promised, producing the deck.

The clock had not yet reached nine, when Biggles looked up from the game and said sharply:

”Listen!”

”No doubt an aircraft, old boy; unless the parrots have picked up the sound by now.”

The three airmen eagerly rushed up from the table and headed for the hill, scrambling up the slope to get a better view. The archaeologists climbed out of their trenches and joined them in staring over the tree-tops.

”There he is,” said Ginger eagerly, when their aircraft broke free from the clouds. ”It’s the Gosling.”

”A sight for sore eyes,” murmured Bertie, while Biggles drew a deep breath of relief as the strain of his nerves relaxed for what seemed like the first time in days.

But their relief soon gave way to bewilderment, when it became apparent that the Gosling was flying in over the jungle alone.

”So that’s your belligerent friend, is it?” remarked Doctor Barton. ”Who was coming back armed to the teeth?”

Biggles didn’t bother to reply; he stared at the amphibian which, as unarmed as ever, was flying leisurely over the jungle area on the other side of the river, zigzagging as if looking for something.

Bertie fixed his his eyeglass and took a good look.

”Good old Algy doesn’t seem to be in a hurry,” he remarked hopefully. ”I mean to say, he does know what’s waiting for him. He should have something up his sleeve.”

”You don’t think he’s looking for an airstrip to bomb or something,” Ginger suggested.

Biggles looked as if he was prepared to believe anything; he had an unpleasant flashback of bombed-out sunflowers. He glanced up the hillside, and decided it was possible to climb a bit further. Ginger and Bertie followed suit, and they dragged themselves up more than climbed, yard by yard, from time to time pausing to look over the sky.

After a few minutes, they spotted what they were expecting.

”Here they come,” said Ginger, in a hoarse voice, staring over the jungle at the approaching Spitfires.

Biggles stopped climbing, standing on a small ledge with his back against the steep rock. His eyes were fixed on the Gosling, whose pilot either had not seen the Spitfires or was ignoring them, and the approaching fighters.

”What the deuce is he up to, anyway,” complained Ginger, staring all over the sky to try to find Algy’s secret weapon.

Even Bertie started to look a bit anxious.

”I say, I wish he could put his plan into action, what? This is cutting it a bit close, by Jove.”

They stared in silent dismay as the Spitfires closed in on the Gosling, carelessly flying on. The fighter pilots, having learned their lesson, parted company and came at their target from either side, but it immediately became obvious to the onlookers that the pilot had anticipated this; the Gosling made a steep dive that, by the look of it, took it out of the line of fire.

Bertie and Ginger, still staring in fascinated horror at the planes, heard Biggles breathe out a sigh of relief.

”Here we are,” he said softly. ”He’s got a patrol of Spits to finish them off.”

His colleagues looked up from the Gosling, and presently spotted five new planes, swiftly descending towards the Spitfires.

”They must have been hiding as far away as possible in the clouds, to avoid being overheard, and Algy called them in by radio when the enemy aircraft turned up,” declared Biggles, taking up his cigarette case to light one of the few, remaining cigarettes.

”Jolly good, and all that. But he still needs to keep safe and sound for a minute before our boys get close enough, or we will have to start making that raft,” pointed out Bertie.

Algy kept the Gosling twisting but kept flying downwards, trying to prevent the Spitfire pilots from spotting the group of fighters that was approaching from above. Before long, the RAF planes swept down beside the Spitfires and fired short bursts over their noses, as a warning.

The Gosling veered away towards the river, Algy obviously being content to let fighter planes settle the score.

Biggles stubbed his cigarette against the rock.

”All right, let’s get cracking. The sooner we get in touch with the Malayan authorities, the better. If it wasn’t for the fact that they can put an end to that labour camp, this trip would have been a waste of time and petrol,” remarked Biggles cuttingly. ”The archaeologist would have been just fine without us. Next time the Air Commodore wants us to go looking for a lost party of whatever, remind me to refuse.”

* * *

  
Algy, leaving the swift airfight behind him, gained height as he flew over the river in order to spot the clearing with the dig. Looking in the reflector, he could see that the RAF planes had lost no time in taking care of the Spitfires. One was gliding down with a bright yellow garland of fire around the engine, leaving a trail of black, oily smoke. The other had gone into a spin, slowly plummeting towards the green mattress of jungle.

He went down and circled over the clearing, and was relieved to see several people there, looking up and waving to the machine. He steered back towards the river, and soon put down the Gosling on the strait where he had parted company with his friends four days earlier.

He didn’t anchor the plane right away, opting instead to tax it several times up and down the river to search the banks for possible threats, since he knew quite well that Spitfires were not the only trouble to be found in the vicinity. Eventually, he stopped on their former mooring-place and climbed out through the nose hatch to make fast the boat. He then stayed on the outside to keep a close look-out.

It was with considerable relief that Algy later could see all three of his friends break out of the jungle. He leapt up from the nose, climbed ashore and welcomed them with a big smile.

”What the deuce took you so long,” said Biggles curtly in the way of greeting. ”It’s been three days.”

”The kite needed a bit of repair after my last visit,” returned Algy evenly, ”and it took some time to set everything up. You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to get in contact with the Governor’s office; the Wing Commander wasn’t keen on taking the responsibility himself. And there wasn’t an available airboat anywhere that could have landed on the river – I’ve been harassing all the station commanders within reach, believe you me.”

”Really, old chap,” broke in Bertie reproachingly, ”what was the idea of cruising around the jungle like a bally target balloon. You almost gave us a heart failure, yes by Jove.”

”I’m not so stupid as to try to take on a bunch of fighters in an unarmed Gosling, am I? The baiting game worked well enough in France; I decided to give it another try.”

”That’s it”, said Biggles wearily and sat down on a mangrove root, ”I’m packing him off back to Wales. My nerves can’t take this any longer.”

Algy smiled.

”Never mind,” he said consolingly, ”you will all feel better once you’re back to a decent bed, hot water and toast for breakfast. The hotel in Kuala Lumpur even made scrambled eggs that weren’t half bad. Are you ready to go? You look,” he added with a critical glance at his colleagues, ”as if you could do with some soap and a shave. I brought fresh clothes for you, but the rest will have to wait until you get back to civilisation.”

”Are we ready to go?” said Bertie warmly. ”I should say we are. Lead on, Macduff!”

”Not so fast,” put in Biggles. ”There is the little matter of a criminal mining operation to deal with. Even if their private air force is put out of operation, they need to be taken care of. No doubt they are responsible for killing several people, besides keeping forced labour. I dare say the army will need to attend to the matter, they have too many guards for us to handle. Didn’t you bring anyone to take charge of the situation?”

”No, I’m afraid not. I offered a lift to the CO of the army outfit, and to the Chief of Police, and to the Governor’s office. They all declined. Can’t think why,” said Algy innocently.

”I can, old boy, I can,” said Bertie, earnestly.

Algy smiled mischievously, but quickly became serious again.

”The army is on its way by boat, they didn’t think much of flying a lot of people up here. They should be here the day after tomorrow, at the latest. They wanted me to wait for them before I flew up here, but I was anxious to get back to you. We’ll contact them by radio and give them the gen. I promised to go back to Kuala Lumpur today, and fly some of the officers up here, but most of the men are on board the boat. It’s up to you whether it’s necessary for us to wait here and meet up with them.”

He grinned at Biggles again.

”I brought a new supply of gaspers, in case you want to stay.”

”Good thinking, old boy,” said Bertie approvingly. ”He’s beginning to get a bit restless.”

”All right, enough fooling around,” said Biggles shortly, took up his cigarette case and lit his last cigarette. After some thinking, he continued:

”I don’t think we need to stay and wait for the main party. We won’t be much help, anyway. Saleh and Ah Yong are better suited to show the army men the way. We’ll get back to the camp and talk it over with them, while you fly back to get the officers. You can take someone with you for company; take Ginger, he’s still got a sore leg.”

”And you can give me those cigarettes, before you leave,” he added.

That, for all practical purposes, was the end of Biggles’ involvement with Malayan archaeology and the illegal mining operation. Before the day was over, Algy had brought back the officer in charge, and some of his men. After a conference with Saleh and Ah Yang, the Air Police decided to leave and let the military ground force take care of the mining camp.

”I shouldn’t sob my heart out if I never saw another dig again”, declared Biggles as he took his place in the pilot’s seat. ”Sitting in a hole and brush dirt away from a skeleton, day after day – what’s the point? Let the poor chap rest in peace, that’s what I say. Life’s too short to waste on ancient history.”

”Still, all that fresh air and rest must have done you good,” said Algy brightly. ”I almost regret throwing down those cigarette packs, when you had the chance to break the habit. They say it only takes a few days, really.”

Biggles, not finding the right words to express his feelings, gave his cousin a look than no one should give his life-long friend and partner.

”You don’t know how relieved we all were when he got them, old boy,” protested Bertie from his seat in the cabin. ”I should jolly well say you saved some lives there, if you get my meaning.”

Down in the clearing, the archaeologists went out from the rock-shelter when they heard the Gosling’s motors roar in take-off, and looked after the plane. When the machine had disappeared from sight, Professor Hayward turned to his team.

”All right, now we can finally get back to work, without interference from either thugs or policemen in our trenches. They certainly did their best so sort everything out, but I can’t pretend I’m not glad they’ve left. Bigglesworth and his men might be all right as pilots, but I’m sure glad they never got into archaeology.”

 

THE END


End file.
